ArticleAcademic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine2021
SARS-CoV-2 viral load in nasopharyngeal swabs in the emergency department does not predict COVID-19 severity and mortality.
Article in Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Significant association between anemia and higher risk for COVID-19 mortality: A meta-analysis of adjusted effect estimates.The American journal of emergency medicine · 2022Pooled it
- The relationship between COVID-19 viral load and disease severity: A systematic review.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2022Pooled it
- Safety of baricitinib in vaccinated patients with severe and critical COVID-19 sub study of the randomised Bari-SolidAct trial.EBioMedicine · 2025Trial
- Prognostic value of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 viral load and antibodies in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.Clinical and translational science · 2023Trial
- Association of SARS-COV-2 Real-Time PCR Cycle Threshold (Ct) Values with the Clinical and Laboratory Profiles of Confirmed COVID-19 Patients Admitted in Tertiary Infectious Disease Hospital in Manila: A Retrospective Study.Acta medica Philippina · 2025Article
- Association between SARS-CoV-2 viral load and serum biomarkers with mortality in Mexican patients.Journal of education and health promotion · 2025Article
- At the crossroads of epidemiology and biology: Bridging the gap between SARS-CoV-2 viral strain properties and epidemic wave characteristics.Biochimie · 2023Review
- Association between SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load and Patient Symptoms and Clinical Outcomes Using Droplet Digital PCR.Viruses · 2023Article
- Transcriptomics secondary analysis of severe human infection with SARS-CoV-2 identifies gene expression changes and predicts three transcriptional biomarkers in leukocytes.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2023Article
- High baseline frequencies of natural killer cells are associated with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection.Current research in immunology · 2023Article
- Immune Cell Response during COVID-19 Infection and following SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination in Patients Admitted to Intensive Care Unit.Journal of immunology research · 2023Article
- Viral load at hospitalization is an independent predictor of severe COVID-19.European journal of clinical investigation · 2023Article
- Association between SARS-CoV-2 infection and the physical fitness of young-adult cadets: a retrospective case-control study.BMJ open · 2022Article
- Correlation of SARS-CoV-2 Nasopharyngeal CT Values With Viremia and Mortality in Adults Hospitalized With COVID-19.Open forum infectious diseases · 2022Article
- Association of high SARS-CoV-2 RNAemia with diabetes and mortality in critically ill COVID-19 patients.iScience · 2022Article
- Modeling COVID-19 Mortality Across 44 Countries: Face Covering May Reduce Deaths.American journal of preventive medicine · 2022Article
- Protective immune trajectories in early viral containment of non-pneumonic SARS-CoV-2 infection.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Correlation of SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load and Clinical Evolution of Pediatric Patients in a General Hospital From Buenos Aires, Argentina.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2022Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Plasma Antigen for Diagnosis and Monitoring of COVID-19.Clinical chemistry · 2021Article
- Integrated immunovirological profiling validates plasma SARS-CoV-2 RNA as an early predictor of COVID-19 mortality.Science advances · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to devastating repercussions on health care systems worldwide. This viral infection has a broad clinical spectrum (ranging from influenza-like disease, viral pneumonia, and hypoxemia to acute respiratory distress syndrome requiring prolonged intensive care unit stays). The prognostic impact of measuring viral load on nasopharyngeal swab specimens (by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction [RT-PCR]) is yet to be elucidated.
methodsBetween March 3 and April 5, 2020, we conducted a retrospective study on a cohort of COVID-19 patients (mild or severe disease) who were hospitalized after presenting to the emergency department (ED) and had at least one positive nasopharyngeal swab during their hospital stay. We led our study at the University Hospitals of Strasbourg in the Greater East region of France, one of the pandemic's epicenters in Europe.
resultsWe have collected samples from a cohort of 287 patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 who were included in our study. Nearly half of them (50.5%) presented a mild form of the disease, while the other half (49.5%) presented a severe form, requiring mechanical ventilation. Median (interquartile range) viral load on the initial upper respiratory swab at admission was 4.76 (3.29-6.06) log
conclusionRespiratory viral load measurement on the first nasopharyngeal swab (by RT-PCR) during initial ED management is neither a predictor of severity nor a predictor of mortality in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Host response to this viral infection along with the extent of preexisting comorbidities might be more foretelling of disease severity than the virus itself.
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