May 27, 2020

Sample Pooling as a Strategy of SARS-COV-2 Nucleic Acid Screening Increases the False-Negative Rate

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

• [pre-print, not peer reviewed] Gan et al. diluted three SARS-CoV-2 positive samples (2 with high viral load and 1 with low viral load) with 8,094 negative samples or double distilled water to form RNA pools. SARS-CoV-2 was detected in pools from high viral load samples up to 1/1000 dilution, while the low viral load sample could only be observed at a low dilution ratio. Based on these findings, pooling samples for surveillance may lead to false negatives for samples with low viral load. 

Gan et al. (May 26, 2020). Sample Pooling as a Strategy of SARS-COV-2 Nucleic Acid Screening Increases the False-Negative Rate. Pre-print downloaded May 27 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.18.20106138