Optimizing testing for COVID-19 in India

Cherian, Philip; Krishna, Sandeep; Menon, Gautam I.

doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009126

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Previous studies comparing antigenic and molecular testing regimes to control COVID-19 report that mass antigen testing alone is an acceptable alternative to strategies that include molecular testing 8,9,10 . In agreement, we found that mass antigen testing at a sufficient sensitivity can detect and isolate almost all individuals infected with a concordant variant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of antigen test target failure and testing strategies on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants

Vecchio

Daniels

Brancaccio

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Population testing remains central to COVID-19 control and surveillance, with countries increasingly using antigen tests rather than molecular tests. Here we describe a SARS-CoV-2 variant that escapes N antigen tests due to multiple disruptive amino-acid substitutions in the N protein. By fitting a multistrain compartmental model to genomic and epidemiological data, we show that widespread antigen testing in the Italian region of Veneto favored the undetected spread of the antigen-escape variant compared to the rest of Italy. We highlight novel limitations of widespread antigen testing in the absence of molecular testing for diagnostic or confirmatory purposes. Critically, in the presence of a variant that escapes antigen testing, following up a proportion of negative antigen tests with a molecular test is the optimal testing strategy. Together, these findings highlight the importance of retaining molecular testing for surveillance purposes, also in contexts where the use of antigen tests is widespread.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of antigen test target failure and testing strategies on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants

Vecchio

Daniels

Brancaccio

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…A limitation of this methodology is that it just aims to rank the states and UTs based on their current testing performance and does not take into account the qualitative factors, such as governance, IEC activities, population demographics, and social behavior, which are also important in determining testing outcomes. In future work, the ranking of the states/UTs using this proposed ranking methodology can be used for optimizing the testing performance in poorly performing & low resource regions by integrating a model and channelizing efforts & resources in the right direction (13).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ranking Methodology for Evaluating Region-Wise COVID-19 Testing Performance in India

Kaur

Kaur²,

Singh³

2022

Front. Public Health

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For containment of COVID-19, most countries are following the isolate, test, treat and trace approach. Following the approach, India scaled up COVID-19 testing from about 5,000 tests per day at the end of March 2020 to more than 1 M tests per day in September 2020. Testing scale-up has seen a huge variation across states and union territories (UTs) with respect to growth rates, testing strategies, testing infrastructure, and deployment of various kit types (RT-PCR, Antigen, CBNAAT, etc). To understand the gaps in testing and prioritize appropriate interventions, it is important for national stakeholders to evaluate and rank states/UTs based on their testing performance. Indicators like total samples tested, total samples positive, tests per million, and positives per million are currently being used by epidemiologists and researchers for comparing the performance of various regions. This article proposes a robust ranking methodology to rank the states/UTs in India based on a comprehensive scoring developed by combining multiple variables for evaluating the testing performance of states/UTs. Since RT-PCR testing is considered the gold standard for COVID-19 testing, the composite score for testing performance in this article is defined by the ability of states/UTs to successfully deploy RT-PCR testing and reduce its positivity over time. Evaluating region-wise ranking can enable the identification of areas requiring immediate attention in poorly performing regions, thus channelizing efforts and resources in the right direction.

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“… Diagnostic flow chart for COVID-19 disease detection.The probable flow chart used to rule out positive or negative test results forSARS-CoV-2infections in asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals with COVID-19 [ 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 , 112 , 113 ]. …”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Biotechnological Perspectives to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic: Precise Diagnostics and Inevitable Vaccine Paradigms

Aileni

Rohela

Jogam

et al. 2022

Cells

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The outbreak of the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the cause for the ongoing global public health emergency. It is more commonly known as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); the pandemic threat continues to spread aroundthe world with the fluctuating emergence of its new variants. The severity of COVID-19 ranges from asymptomatic to serious acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which has led to a high human mortality rate and disruption of socioeconomic well-being. For the restoration of pre-pandemic normalcy, the international scientific community has been conducting research on a war footing to limit extremely pathogenic COVID-19 through diagnosis, treatment, and immunization. Since the first report of COVID-19 viral infection, an array of laboratory-based and point-of-care (POC) approaches have emerged for diagnosing and understanding its status of outbreak. The RT-PCR-based viral nucleic acid test (NAT) is one of the rapidly developed and most used COVID-19 detection approaches. Notably, the current forbidding status of COVID-19 requires the development of safe, targeted vaccines/vaccine injections (shots) that can reduce its associated morbidity and mortality. Massive and accelerated vaccination campaigns would be the most effective and ultimate hope to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak, emerging biotechnologies and their multidisciplinary approaches have accelerated the understanding of molecular details as well as the development of a wide range of diagnostics and potential vaccine candidates, which are indispensable to combating the highly contagious COVID-19. Several vaccine candidates have completed phase III clinical studies and are reported to be effective in immunizing against COVID-19 after their rollout via emergency use authorization (EUA). However, optimizing the type of vaccine candidates and its route of delivery that works best to control viral spread is crucial to face the threatening variants expected to emerge over time. In conclusion, the insights of this review would facilitate the development of more likely diagnostics and ideal vaccines for the global control of COVID-19.

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Optimizing testing for COVID-19 in India

Cited by 15 publications

References 31 publications

Impact of antigen test target failure and testing strategies on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants

Impact of antigen test target failure and testing strategies on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants

Ranking Methodology for Evaluating Region-Wise COVID-19 Testing Performance in India

Biotechnological Perspectives to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic: Precise Diagnostics and Inevitable Vaccine Paradigms

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