Sample pooling: burden or solution?

Abstract

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Real-world Evaluation of a Sample Pooling Strategy for Large-Scale Rapid COVID-19 Testing

“…First, pooling multiple samples into a single reaction may result in diluting weakly positive specimens into mixtures of negative specimens and lead to potential detection failure and false negativity. Second, the sample pooling workflow, requiring considerable hands-on time in preparing samples into different pools and assigning the pool results into individual reports, may lead to a decrease in testing efficiency [13] .…”

How Can Nursing Teams Respond to Large-Scale COVID-19 Screening?

“…Two researches have evaluated the approaches and found the former approach enables high efficiency in COVID-19 screening without loss of sensitivity for screening of a complete population (8,9). Current researches mainly focused on and recommended different pool-testing strategies including two approaches of pooling samples and different pool sizes in large scale COVID-19 screening which have been used in some countries in Asia, Europe, North America, South America et al (10). Different pooling strategy implemented in COVID-19 screening are based on the prevalence or rate of positivity in community.…”

Advances in molecular infectious diseases testing in the time of COVID-19

“…Sample pooling requires operational infrastructure that, prior to the current pandemic, many laboratories did not have [26] . While many IVD manufacturers were able to secure FDA-EUA clearance for pooled specimens on their platforms, few offer solutions that can implement automated pooling.…”