Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

May 3, 2020

Direct Diagnostic Testing of SARS-CoV-2 without the Need for Prior RNA Extraction

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  • [pre-print, not peer reviewed] Wei et al. report on a novel method for nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) for point-of-care SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic testing [Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP)]. This assay can be run directly on transport media following a nasopharyngeal swab without requiring an RNA extraction step prior to amplification of the viral RNA, and provides results in 30 minutes. The authors reported a sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 100% based on 10 positive and 10 negative samples. 

Wei et al. (June 2, 2020). Direct Diagnostic Testing of SARS-CoV-2 without the Need for Prior RNA Extraction. Preprint downloaded June 3 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.28.20115220