Result for
Topic: Testing and Treatment
November 25, 2020
The Sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Tests in the View of Large-Scale Testing
A comparison of two point-of-care antigen tests to PCR testing concluded that the low sensitivity of antigen testing contributes to a significant risk of false negatives when used in symptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. The two antigen tests exhibited sensitivities of 0.66 and 0.62 among all COVID-19 patients, 0.74 and 0.69 among symptomatic patients, and…
Retrospective Cohort Study of Admission Timing and Mortality Following COVID-19 Infection in England
A retrospective cohort study of 6,068 COVID-19 patients in England found that each additional day between symptom onset and hospital admission was associated with a 1% increase in the risk of mortality. Healthcare workers, obese people, and Black, Asian, and other ethnic minorities were more likely to experience later hospital admission, which the authors suggest…
November 24, 2020
Catching a Resurgence Increase in SARS-CoV-2 Viral RNA Identified in Wastewater 48 Hours before COVID-19 Clinical Tests and 96 Hours before Hospitalizations
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 at wastewater facilities in Ottawa identified resurgence of positive cases and hospitalizations in late July 2020 with a 48-hour and 96- hour lead time, respectively. When daily percent positivity was being reported below 1%, increases of >400% in normalized SARS-CoV-2 RNA signal in wastewater were identified 48 hours…
A Randomized Trial of Convalescent Plasma in Covid-19 Severe Pneumonia
A randomized placebo-controlled trial of convalescent plasma (CP) infusion for patients with severe COVID-19 (n=228) found no significant difference between the treatment and placebo groups in the improvement in clinical status measured at 30 days using an ordinal scale (OR=0.83, 95%CI 0.52 – 1.35). Overall mortality was 11% in the CP group and 11.4% in…
November 23, 2020
Pooling Is an Insufficient Strategy to Avoid Health Care Staff to Patient Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
Pooling strategies for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR screening showed low sensitivity compared to single sample testing in medical staff in a hospital in Germany. Among 280 samples tested (8 positive, 3%), the sensitivity was 29% in pooling with 10 samples (2/7 pools) and 76% in pooling with 5 samples (13/17 pools). In contrast to other studies, the…
A Serological Assay to Detect SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in at-Home Collected Finger-Prick Dried Blood Spots
A home-based finger‐prick dried blood spot collection kit demonstrated 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity in detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies against S1 protein in 111 specimens collected at home from 31 patients with COVID-19 and 80 healthy participants. The authors conclude such methods may facilitate the test within hard-to reach-populations and help reduce the sample collection burden…
November 20, 2020
Efficacy and Safety of Favipiravir, an Oral RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase Inhibitor, in Mild-to-Moderate COVID-19: A Randomized, Comparative, Open-Label, Multicenter, Phase 3 Clinical Trial
In a randomized, multicenter, open-label, parallel-arm, Phase 3 trial of adults in India with non-severe COVID-19 (including asymptomatic patients), those who received the antiviral drug favipavir within seven days of symptoms onset had faster clinical recovery compared to placebo. Median time to clinical cure was 3 days (95%CI: 3-4 days) in those who received oral…
Multi-center nationwide comparison of seven serology assays reveals a SARS-CoV-2 non-responding seronegative subpopulation
Significant performance differences were observed in commercially available serologic assays for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. In a multi-center clinical and analytical validation of seven commercially available automated serology assays, samples from 2391 SARS-CoV-2 negative individuals and 698 SARS-CoV-2 PCR positive patients (collected between March and May 2020) were analyzed. Significant performance differences were observed with major…
November 18, 2020
Effect of Vitamin D3 Supplementation vs Placebo on Hospital Length of Stay in Patients with Severe COVID-19 A Multicenter Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial
[Preprint, not peer-reviewed] Administration of a single oral dose of vitamin D3 supplementation to hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 did not show significant effect in reducing hospital length of stay (7 days vs. 7 days, p=0.4), mortality (7% vs. 5%, p=0.6), ICU admission (16% vs. 21%; p=0.3), or mechanical ventilation requirement (7% vs 14%; p=0.1)…
Clinical Performances of Three Fully Automated Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Immunoassays Targeting the Nucleocapsid or Spike Proteins
Both commercial spike and nucleocapsid serologic tests have approximately equivalent sensitivity for clinical diagnosis after PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. A study of 137 samples from 96 patients evaluating three commercial anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2 antibody assays for the detection of COVID-19 reactive antibodies reported equivalent sensitivities (range 70.4%-85.2%) within 14 days from symptom onset to PCR-confirmed diagnosis. At 28…
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