Waterloo workplace trial swaps COVID-19 swabs for saline spit test

Jeff Aramini sees a future where everyone in an office or factory gets tested for COVID-19 once or twice a week.

He and a group of local grassroots healthcare workers and thinkers have spent the past few months brainstorming and studying "out-of-the-box" testing alternatives to try and make it happen. They even got federal research money.

"The current strategy of state controlled testing is simply not working," said Aramini, an epidemiologist and business advisor at University of Waterloo's Velocity startup incubator. "It's been proven over and over again that regular screening is a thing to do and for some reason, Canada's been slow at sort of figuring that out."

They've landed on using saline rinse and spit, known as a swish test. Instead of sticking a swab up your nose and tickling around, you sip a bit of sterile salt water (saline), gargle it and provide a spit sample which is then tested for COVID-19.

The method was developed in British Columbia. The group thinks it is an easier way to test, which helps cover more people. Unlike the swab test used at COVID assessment centres, you don't need a doctor or nurse to collect the sample.

Aramini and his group running a pilot over the next few months — looking for workplaces in Waterloo region interested in paying to frequently test their employees. They've secured a research lab testing facility and promise results with a one day turnaround. Each test would be between $40 to $60.

It's billed as "preventative screening", hoping to catch asymptomatic workers unknowingly shedding and spreading the virus and possibly prevent those mass workplace outbreaks, recently seen at a Mississauga Canada Post facility and Cargill's Guelph meat processing plant.

"The entire goal behind regular screening is to identify those people and get them to isolate," said Aramini. "Anything that can be done to increase the level of testing in Canada needs to happen."

Less invasive alternative 'extremely attractive'

Dr. Doug Friars, a family doctor and lead physician at Guelph's COVID assessment centre, is also part of the group. He's been finding people getting tested are reluctant to get the swab up their nose, particularly children.

In B.C., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, this swish and gargle testing is being used as an alternative for school-aged kids.

Friars understands the discomfort. He said he gets tested every few days so he can go visit his mom, who is in a facility.

"You get [the swab] down once, but try getting it a second time and it's extremely traumatizing," he said. "An alternative that's less invasive is extremely attractive."

Friars has been helping run local studies over the past few months, looking at the accuracy of swish method. He said it's comparable to the swab. CBC reached out to Ontario's Ministry of Health about the method and its accuracy but has yet to hear back.

But Friars cautions, it's a screening technique and not a diagnostic test, like you would get at an assessment centre. In the pilot, those with positive spit tests are considered to be "presumed positives." They would be told to isolate and referred to an assessment centre to get further tested.

The group's pilot is starting with workplaces, but Friar's big idea is to make swish more widely available.

"We're hoping this can be a very powerful tool to help us contain COVID."