Effects of oral hygiene and food intake on tongue swab testing for tuberculosis in South Africa
Preprint
Abstract
The WHO has recommended tongue swabs (TS) as alternative samples for microbiological diagnosis of tuberculosis. We evaluated the effects of oral hygiene and food/drink intake on TS performance in South Africa. Food/drink intake prior to sampling marginally decreased Mycobacterium tuberculosis DNA signal strength, but neither behaviour decreased diagnostic sensitivity.Keywords
Funding Information
- Gates Foundation (INV-004527)
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