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Review
. 2020 Jul;98(7):947-954.
doi: 10.1007/s00109-020-01931-w. Epub 2020 Jun 13.

COVID-19: molecular diagnostics overview

Marlin Touma  1
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19: molecular diagnostics overview

Marlin Touma. J Mol Med (Berl). 2020 Jul.

Abstract

The last day of 2019 delivered the first report to the World Health Organization (WHO) about a group of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, China. Subsequent investigations identified the new comer, a novel coronavirus related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and thus was termed as SARS-CoV-2. Being very contagious, the new virus led the era of "COVID-19" which is the acronym of "coronavirus disease 2019," evoking an imminent threat to global health security with unprecedented devastating challenges to human kind. In this article, we provide a molecular overview on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and summarize tremendous efforts that have been made to develop a rapid confirmatory diagnostic test for COVID-19. The diagnostic performances of the available tests are analyzed based on the best current information from the early research.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that she has no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
SARS-CoV-2 genome and structure
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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