Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the agent responsible for the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), which triggers lung failure, pneumonia, and multi-organ dysfunction. This enveloped, positive sense and single-stranded RNA virus can be transmitted through aerosol droplets, direct and indirect contacts. Thus, SARS-CoV-2 is highly contagious and has reached a pandemic level in a few months. Since COVID-19 has caused numerous human casualties and severe economic loss posing a global threat, the development of readily available, accurate, fast, and cost-effective diagnostic techniques in hospitals and in any places where humans spread the virus is urgently required. COVID-19 can be diagnosed by clinical findings and several laboratory tests. These tests may include virus isolation, nucleic acid-based molecular assays like real-time polymerase chain reactions, antigen or antibody-based immunological assays such as rapid immunochromatographic tests, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, immunofluorescence techniques, and indirect fluorescent antibody techniques, electrochemical sensors, etc. However, current methods should be developed by novel approaches for sensitive, specific, and accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 cases to control and prevent this outbreak. Thus, this review will cover an overview and comparison of multiple reports and commercially available kits that include molecular tests, immunoassays, and sensor-based diagnostic methods for diagnosis of COVID-19. The pros and cons of these methods and future perspectives will be thoroughly evaluated and discussed.
Highlights
On 31 December 2019, 27 cases of a pneumonia of unknown etiology were detected in Wuhan City, China
The disease was named coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 7th January 2020.2 COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-coronaviral outbreaks (CoVs)-2 primarily targets the human respiratory system
While two studies reported that RT-Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) methods showed more than 97% sensitivity in targeting the ORF1ab gene compared to reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), another study showed that both methods had the same sensitivity and both were able to detect a 20-fold diluted sample.[60–62]
Summary
On 31 December 2019, 27 cases of a pneumonia of unknown etiology were detected in Wuhan City, China. And rapid detection of the virus provides both accurate and targeted therapy It reduces the consumption of nonspecific drugs, treatment costs, and morbidity.[29] The diagnostic assays for RNA viruses are classified into five major categories: (i) cell culture, (ii) electron microscopy, (iii) next-generation sequencing methods, (iv) nucleic acid methods, and (v) serological methods (Fig. 2). Unlabeled electrochemical detection of DNA hybridization is presented as a potential approach for the diagnosis of COVID-19 by Tripathy and Singh.[51] In this reported approach, the target nucleotide can be SARS-CoV-2 specific viral RNA or the corresponding cDNA or any unique sequence specific to them. This sensor is a high-precision immunological diagnostic device developed for COVID-19.26
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