The global COVID-19 epidemic, ongoing since the initial outbreak in 2019, has caused panic and huge economic losses worldwide. Due to the continuous emergence of new variants, COVID-19 has been responsible for a higher proportion of asymptomatic patients than the previously identified SARS and MERS, which makes early diagnosis and prevention more difficult.
The World Health Organization COVID-19 Partners Platform represents the first step towards a new model of health crisis information sharing across stakeholders and could evolve into an engagement mechanism of choice for future cross-border public health emergencies.
SARS-CoV-2 is a novel coronavirus that has caused a global pandemic. To date, 504,907,616 people have been infected and developed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A rapid and simple diagnostic method is needed to control this pandemic. In this study, a visual nucleic acid detection method combining reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification and a vertical flow visualization strip (RT-LAMP-VF) was successfully established and could detect 20 copies/μl of SARS-CoV-2 RNA transcript within 50 min at 61°C. This assay had no cross-reactivity with a variety of coronaviruses, including human coronavirus OC43, 229E, HKU1, NL63, severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and bat coronavirus HKU4, exhibiting very high levels of diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Most strikingly, this method can be used for detecting multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the Wuhan-Hu-1 strain, Delta, and Omicron variants. Compared with the RT-qPCR method recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), RT-LAMP-VF does not require special equipment and is easy to perform. As a result, it is more suitable for rapid screening of suspected SARS-CoV-2 samples in the field and local laboratories.
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