Meta-analysis of the clinical performance of commercial SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid and antibody tests up to 22nd August 2020
The LNS’s microbiology department was involved in an international meta-analysis gathering evaluations of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic accuracy for nucleic acid and antibody tests. This work aim at assessing the reliability of the SARS-CoV-2 tests available on the market, which is essential to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper, published in Euro surveillance journal, reviewed the performance of 93.757 test results from 151 published studies and 20.205 new test results from 12 countries in the European Union and European Economic Area. From this extensive evaluation study 4 of 13 nucleic acid tests and 3 of 28 antibody test reached a sensitivity of at least 95% on the one hand and 9 of 13 nucleic acid tests and 25 of 28 antibody test reached a specificity of at least 98%. This study also pointed out that heterogeneity of the evaluations, especially the significantly higher clinical performance reported by the manufacturers compared to the independent laboratories, indicating a need for improvement in this area.
Article is available online: Van Walle Ivo, Leitmeyer Katrin, Broberg Eeva K, the European COVID-19 microbiological laboratories group. Meta-analysis of the clinical performance of commercial SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid and antibody tests up to 22 August 2020. Euro Surveill. 2021;26(45):pii=2001675.
https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.45.2001675
Genome Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 Allows Monitoring of Variants of Concern through Wastewater
The LNS’s microbiology department is collaborating with LIST and LCSB on monitoring SARS-CoV-2 Variants of concern in sewage water by genome sequencing. While wastewater sampling allows monitoring of Covid evolution in a large population, the resulting mixture of genetic material makes it difficult to identify a specific sublineage. In this publication, we use wastewater sequencing data to identify combinations of mutations specific to certain lineages. Restrospective analysis of the frequency of these gene signatures is corroborated by analyses of clinical samples from the same time period. It also allows the identification of a regional cluster. These results indicate that it is possible to use genomic surveillance of wastewater for the early detection of new variants of SARS-CoV-2
Article is available online: Herold, M.; d’Hérouël, A.F.;May, P.; Delogu, F.; Wienecke-Baldacchino, A.; Tapp, J.; Walczak, C.;Wilmes, P.; Cauchie, H.-M.; Fournier, G.; et al. Genome Sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 Allows Monitoring of Variants of Concern Through Wastewater. Water 2021, 13, 3018.
https://doi.org/10.3390/w13213018