Clinical application of an intelligent oropharyngeal swab robot: implication for the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by infection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is transmitted through respiratory droplets and close contact [1–4]. To diagnose COVID-19, oropharyngeal swab (OP swab) sampling is widely used for viral nucleic acid detection [3]. However, healthcare workers who perform OP swab are at high risk of infection due to aerosol from patients during the process of sampling. And the quality of manual OP swabs is inconsistent among different collectors, which may lead to misdiagnosis [5]. Use of a remote-controlled OP swab robot has the potential to avoid close contact between healthcare workers with patients, and thus reduce the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection during sampling. Here, we invented a robotic sampling (RS) system and evaluated the safety and efficacy of this system on OP swab sampling during the period of pandemic. Clinical application of the safety and effectiveness of an intelligent oropharyngeal-swab robot, and its implication for the COVID-19 pandemic <https://bit.ly/2BUsV55>