Comparison and correlation of commercial SARS-CoV-2 real-time-PCR assays, Ireland, June 2020
Anne Carroll, Eleanor McNamara
Abstract
We report the performance of a variety of commercially available SARS-CoV-2 PCR kits, used in several different sites across Ireland to determine if C t values across platforms are comparable. We also investigate whether a C t value, a surrogate for calculated viral loads in the absence of viral culture of > 34 can be used to exclude SARS-CoV-2 infection and its complications. We found a variation in C t values from different assays for the same calculated viral load; this should be taken into consideration for result interpretation.
Topics & Concepts
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)2019-20 coronavirus outbreakVirologyReal-time polymerase chain reactionComputational biologyBiologyMedicineGeneticsInternal medicineGeneInfectious disease (medical specialty)OutbreakDiseaseSARS-CoV-2 detection and testingCOVID-19 diagnosis using AISARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research