1. Smartphone screen testing, a novel pre-diagnostic method to identify SARS-CoV-2 infectious individuals
- Author
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Rodrigo M Young, Camila J Solis, Andres Barriga-Fehrman, Carlos Abogabir, Alvaro R Thadani, Mariana Labarca, Eva Bustamante, Cecilia V Tapia, Antonia G Sarda, Francisca Sepulveda, Nadia Pozas, Leslie C Cerpa, María A Lavanderos, Nelson M Varela, Alvaro Santibañez, Ana M Sandino, Felipe Reyes-Lopez, Garth Dixon, and Luis A Quiñones
- Subjects
COVID-19 ,SARS-CoV-2 ,RT-PCR ,Medicine ,Science ,Biology (General) ,QH301-705.5 - Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic will likely take years to control globally, and constant epidemic surveillance will be required to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2, especially considering the emergence of new variants that could hamper the effect of vaccination efforts. We developed a simple and robust – Phone Screen Testing (PoST) – method to detect SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals by RT-PCR testing of smartphone screen swab samples. We show that 81.3–100% of individuals with high-viral-load SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal-positive samples also test positive for PoST, suggesting this method is effective in identifying COVID-19 contagious individuals. Furthermore, we successfully identified polymorphisms associated with SARS-CoV-2 Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants, in SARS-CoV-2-positive PoST samples. Overall, we report that PoST is a new non-invasive, cost-effective, and easy-to-implement smartphone-based smart alternative for SARS-CoV-2 testing, which could help to contain COVID-19 outbreaks and identification of variants of concern in the years to come.
- Published
- 2021
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