May 4, 2020

Evaluation of COVID-19 RT-QPCR Test in Multi-Sample Pools

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

• Many healthcare systems are experiencing shortages of reagents for SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing. These authors were able to detect a single positive sample in pools of up to 32 negative samples, either before or after RNA extraction, with an estimated false negative rate of 10%. Single positive samples could also be recovered from pools of 64 (the highest pool size tested) with additional amplification cycles. Pooled testing could be applied immediately to expand screening capacities.  

Yelin et al. (May 2, 2020). Evaluation of COVID-19 RT-QPCR Test in Multi-Sample Pools. Clinical Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa531