Real-time RT-PCR for COVID-19 diagnosis: challenges and prospects.
Pan Afr Med J
; 35(Suppl 2): 121, 2020.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-962487
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 impacts global public health, economy, education, tourism/hospitality and sports; rapid and accurate testing of clinical samples dictate effective response. So far, the real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is the assay of choice for COVID-19 diagnosis considering its rapidity and accuracy in informing on active coronavirus (CoV) infection. Presently, several RT-qPCR protocols with differing sensitivity/specificity are used for performing this assay; some of them are known to have generated debatable test results to constitute challenges worthy of consideration. This review provides a critical assessment of various published works on RT-qPCR assays used for COVID-19 diagnosis with their different indicators of positivity i.e., cycle threshold (Ct) cut-off values. Knowledge of diagnostic tests for COVID-19 is still evolving and, as a prospect, underscores the need for local validation of positive-negative Ct cut-off values when establishing RT-qPCR assays for SARS-CoV-2 detection.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
/
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Pan Afr Med J
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Pamj.supp.2020.35.24258
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS