Group A Streptococcus Saliva Study

This study is being done to evaluate whether saliva can be used to diagnose GAS infection and also to compare different testing methods in the microbiology lab. The saliva sample testing will be compared to the throat swab testing to see if saliva testing works as well. The lab will also try different testing methods to see if a faster type of testing (e.g. molecular testing) works as well as the regular method, which takes 48 hours to get results. This is important because throat swabs can be challenging to collect in some children, and saliva is often much easier and more acceptable by children to collect. This could improve our ability to accurately diagnose and treat GAS infections.