COVID-19 Testing Pipeline: Lesson Learned

Abstract

The transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) in Indonesia is seen to be uncontrollably increasing that urges the government to leverage the capacity for the disease detections. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), rapid test and computed tomography (CT) scan are the most common methods to determine if one has been infected regardless of whether or not the common symptoms of such Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) surface. Among these three, RT-PCR is considered the gold standard for qualitative and quantitative assessment of SARS CoV-2 detection. The present paper aims at elaborating the framework of Roche's RT-PCR machine employed specifically for SARS CoV-2 detection performed by Genetics Indonesia which is deemed to be efficient and relatively quicker than other detection kits. RT-PCR machine detected SARS Cov-2 with RNA amplification curve equals to 10 copies RNA below the cut off value of Crossing point (Cp) positive control. Also elucidated in the paper is the implementations of EAV RNA and LightCycler® 96 RT-PCR System through which analysis time, amounts of individual required sample, as well as the reagents, can be accordingly reduced.