Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

May 7, 2020

Efficient Prevalence Estimation and Infected Sample Identification with Group Testing for SARS-CoV-2

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  • Group testing of samples for the presence of SARS-CoV2 involves pooling samples from multiple individuals and testing individual samples only if the pool is positive. This strategy can greatly increase testing efficiency. This is especially critical during the use widespread screening and isolation as a part of primary control measures (i.e., absence of an effective therapeutic or vaccine).  
  • Using a mathematical model to simulate changing viral loads over the course of an epidemic and comparing different pooling strategies for community screening, the authors show group testing could accurately estimate overall prevalence and increase the identification of infected individuals.  
  • If group testing results in lower sensitivity it will increase the number of false negatives. 

Cleary et al. (May 6, 2020). Efficient Prevalence Estimation and Infected Sample Identification with Group Testing for SARS-CoV-2. Pre-print downloaded May 7 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.01.20086801