ArticleClinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases2022
Effective bubble-based testing for SARS-CoV-2 using swab-pooling.
Article in Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Multi-Laboratory Evaluation of Commercial Monkeypox Virus Molecular Tests.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Performance of nasopharyngeal swab and saliva in detecting Delta and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants.Journal of medical virology · 2022Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 7 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesDespite the success in developing COVID-19 vaccines, containment of the disease is obstructed worldwide by vaccine production bottlenecks, logistics hurdles, vaccine refusal, transmission through unvaccinated children, and the appearance of new viral variants. This underscores the need for effective strategies for identifying carriers/patients, which was the main aim of this study.
methodsWe present a bubble-based PCR testing approach using swab-pooling into lysis buffer. A bubble is a cluster of people who can be periodically tested for SARS-CoV-2 by swab-pooling. A positive test of a pool mandates quarantining each of its members, who are then individually tested while in isolation to identify the carrier(s) for further epidemiological contact tracing.
resultsWe tested an overall sample of 25 831 individuals, divided into 1273 bubbles, with an average size of 20.3 ± 7.7 swabs/test tube, obtaining for all pools (≤37 swabs/pool) a specificity of 97.5% (lower bound 96.6%) and a sensitivity of 86.3% (lower bound 78.2%) and a post hoc analyzed sensitivity of 94.6% (lower bound 86.7%) and a specificity of 97.2% (lower bound 96.2%) in pools with ≤25 swabs, relative to individual testing. DISCUSSION: This approach offers a significant scale-up in sampling and testing throughput and savings in testing cost, without reducing sensitivity or affecting the standard PCR testing laboratory routine. It can be used in school classes, airplanes, hospitals, military units, and workplaces, and may be applicable to future pandemics.
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