Jornal de Técnicas Imunológicas e Doenças Infecciosas

A REVIEW PAPER ON THE CURRENT DIAGNOSTIC APPROACHES FOR THE SARS-CoV-2

Arundhati Chaudhary

COVID-19 is an evolving phenomenon. Originated from a cluster of patients with violent yet similar symptoms of respiratory illness as of viral flu in Wuhan, China late-December 2019, which later confirmed as a novel strain of Beta-coronavirus, illustrating transmitted from bats to humans with an undefined indication of any intermediate host.SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted by respir¬atory droplets and fomites and present clinically with fever, fatigue, myalgia, conjunctivitis, insomnia, dysgeusia, sore throat. However, some with escalated symptoms into acute respiratory distress syndrome accompany inflammatory cytokines response and multiorgan failure. The virus spread it spikes to international borders with extraordinary ferocity and speed stretching its course with an explosive increase in death tolls from March from a few hundred to a hundred thousand to crossing 50 million as of now. The wide range in the severity of the infection makes it difficult to access the overall infection rate. For that, an immense need for rapid and accurate diagnostics methods to better prevent the spread of COVID-19. For the testing, CDC recommends, two kinds of tests are available for COVID-19. First, a viral test tells you if you have a current infection. Second, an antibody test tells you if you had previous infections. The present review discusses the current literature on the modalities, including nucleic acid Amplification Tests(RT-PCR), Direct Viral Antigen tests, and other serological antibody-based tests with varying accuracy and efficacy highlighting various future approaches to enhance the sensitivity of the test and lowering the false positive outcomes.