Evaluation of Commercially Available Viral Transport Medium (VTM) for SARS-CoV-2 Inactivation and Use in Point-of-Care (POC) Testing.
Viruses
; 12(11)2020 10 23.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-895403
ABSTRACT
Critical to facilitating SARS-CoV-2 point-of-care (POC) testing is assurance that viruses present in specimens are inactivated onsite prior to processing. Here, we conducted experiments to determine the virucidal activity of commercially available Viral Transport Mediums (VTMs) to inactivate SARS-CoV-2. Independent testing methods for viral inactivation testing were applied, including a previously described World Health Organization (WHO) protocol, in addition to a buffer exchange method where the virus is physically separated from the VTM post exposure. The latter method enables sensitive detection of viral viability at higher viral titre when incubated with VTM. We demonstrate that VTM formulations, Primestore® Molecular Transport Medium (MTM) and COPAN eNAT™ completely inactivate high-titre SARS-CoV-2 virus (>1 × 107 copies/mL) and are compatible with POC processing. Furthermore, full viral inactivation was rapidly achieved in as little as 2 min of VTM exposure. We conclude that adding certain VTM formulations as a first step post specimen collection will render SARS-CoV-2 non-infectious for transport, or for further in-field POC molecular testing using rapid turnaround GeneXpert platforms or equivalent.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Specimen Handling
/
Virus Inactivation
/
Point-of-Care Testing
/
Betacoronavirus
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
V12111208
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