Testing and diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection

The recent outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly spread around the world since its discovery in China, in December 2019. The current standard method for determining whether a patient is infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus involves taking a nasal or throat swab sample, which is then sent to laboratories for testing. The laboratories then use polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based technology on respiratory specimens remain the gold standard to determine if the genetic material of the virus is present in the sample and use this information to diagnose the patient. However, serologic immunoassays and point-of-care technologies are rapidly emerging with high specificity and sensitivity as well. Even if there are excellent techniques for diagnosing symptomatic patients with COVID-19 in equipped laboratories, critical gaps still exist in the screening of asymptomatic individuals who are in the incubation phase of the virus, as well as in the accurate determination of live virus shedding during convalescence to inform decisions for ending isolation.