Laboratory diagnosis of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)

Abstract

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has threatened health worldwide. As of the end of 2020, there were nearly 10 million confirmed cases and nearly 5 million deaths associated with COVID-19. Rapid and early laboratory diagnosis of COVID-19 is the main focus of treatment and control. Molecular tests are the basis for confirmation of COVID-19, but serological tests for SARS-CoV-2 are widely available and play an increasingly important role in understanding the epidemiology of the virus and in identifying populations at higher risk for infection. Point-of-care tests have the advantage of rapid, accurate, portable, low cost and non-specific device requirements, which provide great help for disease diagnosis and detection. This review will discuss the performance of different laboratory diagnostic tests and platforms, as well as suitable clinical samples for testing, and related biosafety protection. This review shall guide for the diagnosis of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: COVID-19; CoVs; Laboratory diagnosis; SARS-CoV-2; nCoV-19.

Fig. 1

The diffferent positions of amplicon targets on SARS-CoV-2 genome. Wuhan-Hu-1 genome (GenBank MN908947) as a reference. ORF: open reading frame; RdRp: RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene; S: spike protein gene; E: envelope protein gene; M: membrane protein gene; N: nucleocapsid protein gene.