Current quantitative polymerase chain reaction to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 may give positive results for other described coronavirus

Abstract

Some weeks after the first CoVID-19 outbreak, the WHO published some qPCR protocol assays developed by different institutions worldwide. These qPCR designs are being used to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the population, which allow us to monitore the prevalence of the virus during the pandemic. Moreover, the use of these designs is wide spreading and nowadays they are used to detect SARS-CoV-2 in environmental samples to act as epidemiological surveillance tool. However, at the time of designing the published RT-qPCR assays, a lack of SARS-CoV-2 genomes available may explain a low exclusivity in some cases. In this study, we are reporting experimental data which demonstrate that some of the current qPCR used to detect SARS-CoV-2 may give positive results for other described coronavirus different from SARS-CoV-2.