March 27, 2020

Evaluation of COVID-19 RT-qPCR test in multi-sample pools.

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

• The authors found that a pooled sampling approach consistently detected single samples of SARS-Cov-2 in pools of up to 32 unique samples, with an estimated false negative rate of 10%.
• This method could be applied immediately in current clinical testing laboratories, potentially enabling expansion of screening capacities to enable monitoring cohesive groups like hospital staff, military units, or factory workers. 

Yelin et al. (Mar 27, 2020). Evaluation of COVID-19 RT-qPCR test in multi-sample pools. Pre-print downloaded Mar 27 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.26.20039438