Multi-Tiered Screening and Diagnosis Strategy for COVID-19: A Model for Sustainable Testing Capacity in Response to Pandemic.

Multi-Tiered Screening and Diagnosis Strategy for COVID-19: A Model for Sustainable Testing Capacity in Response to Pandemic. Ann Med. 2020 May 06;:1-20 Authors: Pulia MS, O'Brien TP, Hou PC, Schuman A, Sambursky R Abstract Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by novel enveloped single stranded RNA coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), is responsible for an ongoing global pandemic. While other countries deployed widespread testing as an early mitigation strategy, the U.S. experienced delays in development and deployment of organism identification assays. As such, there is uncertainty surrounding disease burden and community spread, severely hampering containment efforts. COVID-19 illuminates the need for a tiered diagnostic approach to rapidly identify clinically significant infections and reduce disease spread. Without the ability to efficiently screen patients, hospitals are overwhelmed, potentially delaying treatment for other emergencies.A multi-tiered, diagnostic strategy incorporating a rapid host immune response assay as a screening test; molecular confirmatory testing and rapid IgM/IgG testing to assess benefit from quarantine/further testing and provide information on population exposure/herd immunity would efficiently evaluate potential COVID-19 patients. Triaging patients within minutes with a fingerstick rather than hours/days after an invasive swab is critical to pandemic response as reliance on the existing strategy is limit...
Source: Annals of Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Tags: Ann Med Source Type: research