Journal of clinical virology : the official publication of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology
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The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical performance of four SARS-CoV-2 immunoassays and their contribution in routine care for the diagnosis of COVID-19, in order to benefit of robust data before their extensive use. ⋯ Serology was complementary to RT-PCR for the diagnosis of COVID-19 at least 14 days after onset of symptoms. First line serology testing can be performed with Wantai Ab or Abbott IgG assays, while DiaPro IgG confirmation assay can be used as an efficient confirmation assay.
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The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has resulted in significant shortages of RT-PCR testing supplies including RNA extraction kits. The goal of our study was to determine if a simplified heat-RNA release method would provide comparable detection of SARS-CoV-2 without the need for nucleic acid extraction. ⋯ Five samples that were missed by heat-RNA release method had a mean Ct value: 35 using the automated extraction instrument, indicating a very low viral load. Our findings show that a simple heat-RNA release method is a reasonable alternative for the majority of COVID-19 positive patients and can help overcome the cost and availability issues of RNA extraction reagents.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) and represents a global pandemic affecting more than 26 million people and has claimed >870,000 lives worldwide. Diagnostic tests for SARS-COV-2 infection commonly use nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS). As an alternative specimen, we investigated the potential use of the real-time reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) detection of SARS-COV-2 in saliva samples in large suspected-COVID-19 patients in Kuwait. ⋯ Moreover, the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of RT-PCR for the diagnosis of COVID-19 in saliva were 83.43 % (95 % CI: 79.07-87.20) and 96.71 % (95 % CI: 94.85-98.04 %), respectively. An analysis of the agreement between the NPS and saliva specimens demonstrated 91.25 % observed agreement (κ coefficient = 0.814, 95 % CI, 0.775-0.854). This study demonstrates that saliva can be a noninvasive specimen for detection of SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR.
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Molecular assays based on reverse transcription-loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) may be useful for rapid diagnosis of the severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) because of the easy performance and the option to bypass RNA extraction. ⋯ The variplex RT-LAMP may serve as a rapid test to be combined with a RT-PCR assay to increase the diagnostic accuracy in patients with suspected COVID-19 infection.