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Epidemiological Significance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA Dynamic in Naso-Pharyngeal Swabs

From 16 March to 15 December 2020, 132,357 naso-pharyngeal/oropharyngeal swabs were collected in the province of Teramo, Abruzzo Region, Italy, and tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA by a commercially available molecular assay. A total of 12,880 swabs resulted positive. For 8212 posit...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Calistri, Paolo, Danzetta, Maria Luisa, Amato, Laura, Cito, Francesca, Di Giuseppe, Alessandra, Zenobio, Valentina, Morelli, Daniela, Puglia, Ilaria, Caporale, Marialuigia, Scialabba, Silvia, Savini, Giovanni, Migliorati, Giacomo, D’Alterio, Nicola, Lorusso, Alessio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8230487/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34200850
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9061264
Descripción
Sumario:From 16 March to 15 December 2020, 132,357 naso-pharyngeal/oropharyngeal swabs were collected in the province of Teramo, Abruzzo Region, Italy, and tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genomic RNA by a commercially available molecular assay. A total of 12,880 swabs resulted positive. For 8212 positive patients (4.150 women and 4.062 men) the median age was statistically different between women (median: 49.55 ± 23.9 of SD) and men (median: 48.35 ± 23.5 of SD) while no differences were found in the comparison between the cycle threshold for the N protein-encoding gene (C(T) N) median values and gender. Differences were observed in the C(T) N gene median values of swabs collected from March to September as well as in the pairwise comparison between September and October and between November and December. The C(T) N gene median values observed in specific periods characterizing the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in 2020 were also compared with the incidence of COVID-19 cases; a strong inverse correlation was highlighted (Pearson correlation coefficient = −0.978). Our findings confirm the usefulness of the C(T) N values as an indirect detection parameter to monitor viral loads in the population.