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Microsampling: A role to play in Covid‐19 diagnosis, surveillance, treatment and clinical trials
Author(s) -
Rajadhyaksha Madhura,
Londhe Vaishali
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
drug testing and analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.065
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1942-7611
pISSN - 1942-7603
DOI - 10.1002/dta.3107
Subject(s) - pandemic , medicine , covid-19 , clinical trial , immunogenicity , population , transmission (telecommunications) , intensive care medicine , outbreak , sampling (signal processing) , disease , virology , medical emergency , immunology , environmental health , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , computer science , antibody , filter (signal processing) , computer vision , telecommunications
The outbreak of the new coronavirus disease changed the world upside down. Every day, millions of people were subjected to diagnostic testing for Covid‐19, all over the world. Molecular tests helped in the diagnosis of current infection by detecting the presence of viral genome whereas serological tests helped in detecting the presence of antibody in blood as well as contributed to vaccine development. This testing helped in understanding the immunogenicity, community prevalence, geographical spread and conditions post‐infection. However, with the contagious nature of the virus, biological specimen sampling involved the risk of transmission and spread of infection. Clinic or pathology visit was the most concerning part. Trained personnel and resources was another barrier. In this scenario, microsampling played an important role due to its most important advantage of remote, contactless, small volume and self‐sampling. Minimum requirements for sample storage and ease of shipment added value in this situation. The highly sensitive instruments and validated assay formats assured the accuracy of results and stability of samples. Microsampling techniques are contributing effectively to the Covid‐19 pandemic by reducing the demand for clinical staff in population‐level testing. The validated and established applications supported the use of microsampling in diagnosis, therapeutic drug monitoring, development of treatment or vaccines and clinical trials for Covid‐19.