Open AccessPooled testing for COVID-19 diagnosis by real-time RT-PCR: A multi-site comparative evaluation of 5- & 10-sample pooling
Author(s) -
Ira Praharaj,
Amita Jain,
Mini P. Singh,
Anukumar Balakrishnan,
Rahul Dhodapkar,
Biswajyoti Borkakoty,
Ashok Munivenkatappa,
Pradeep Das,
Debasis Biswas,
Usha Kalawat,
Jyotirmayee Turuk,
A P Sugunan,
Shantanu Prakash,
Anirudh Singh,
R. Barathidasan,
Subhra Subhadra,
Jyotsnamayee Sabat,
M Manjunath,
Poonam Kanta,
Nagaraja Mudhigeti,
Rahul Hazarika,
Hricha Mishra,
Abhishek Kumar,
C Santhalembi,
Manas Ranjan Dikhit,
Neetu Vijay,
Jitendra Narayan,
Harmanmeet Kaur,
Sidhartha Giri,
Nivedita Gupta
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
indian journal of medical research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.578
H-Index - 87
ISSN - 0971-5916
DOI - 10.4103/ijmr.ijmr_2304_20
Subject(s) - concordance , sample (material) , medicine , sample size determination , pooling , covid-19 , biology , statistics , mathematics , computer science , chromatography , chemistry , disease , artificial intelligence , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Public health and diagnostic laboratories are facing huge sample loads for COVID-19 diagnosis by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). High sensitivity of optimized real-time RT-PCR assays makes pooled testing a potentially efficient strategy for resource utilization when positivity rates for particular regions or groups of individuals are low. We report here a comparative analysis of pooled testing for 5- and 10-sample pools by real-time RT-PCR across 10 COVID-19 testing laboratories in India.