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. 2020 Apr;25(14):2000398.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.14.2000398.

An alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 - escape from the NA extraction kit-shortage, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 2020

Anna S Fomsgaard  1 , Maiken Worsøe Rosenstierne  1
Affiliations

An alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 - escape from the NA extraction kit-shortage, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 2020

Anna S Fomsgaard et al. Euro Surveill. 2020 Apr.

Abstract

The World Health Organization has declared COVID-19 caused by the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 a pandemic. Due to growing demand for reagents and/or kits to extract SARS-CoV-2 RNA for subsequent RT-qPCR diagnostics, there is a worldwide risk of shortages. With a detection sensitivity of 97.4% (95% CI: 86.2-99.9%), we describe a simple, fast, alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2, where samples are simply heat-processed for 5 min at 98 °C before a commonly-used RT-qPCR procedure.

Keywords: COVID-19; RT-qPCR; SARS-CoV-2; molecular diagnostics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure
Figure
Amplification curves of eight SARS-CoV-2 positive patient samples run in parallel reactions: (A) SensiFAST SARS-CoV-2a RT-qPCR of MagNA Pureb purified samples, (B) SensiFAST SARS-CoV-2a RT-qPCR of heat-processed samples(5 min at 98 °C), Denmark, 2020
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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