SARS-CoV-2 detection in multi-sample pools in a real pandemic scenario: A screening strategy of choice for active surveillance

CASTELLARO, ANDRÉS MARCOS; VELEZ, PABLO; MERLERA, GUILLERMO GIAJ; DUEÑAS, JUAN RONDAN; CONDAT, FELIX; GALLARDO, JESICA; MAKHOUL, AYLEN; CINALLI, CAMILA; CAVAGLIERI, LORENZO ROSALES; DI COLA, GUADALUPE; SICILIA, PAOLA; LÓPEZ, LAURA; BOCCO, JOSÉ LUIS; BARBÁS, MARÍA GABRIELA; CARDOZO, DIEGO HERNÁN; PISANO, MARÍA BELÉN; RÉ, VIVIANA; BELAUS, ANDREA; CASTRO, GONZALO; CRESPO, PILAR; FURLÁN, GABRIELA; GATICA, LAURA; MIRÓ, MARÍA SOLEDAD; MOTRICH, RUBÉN; RACCA, ANA CRISTINA; REYNA, LUCIANA

PLOS ONE

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Año: 2022 vol. 17 p. 1 - 1

1932-6203

ackground The current COVID-19 pandemic has overloaded the diagnostic capacity of laboratories by the gold standard method rRT-PCR. This disease has a high spread rate and almost a quarter of infected individuals never develop symptoms. In this scenario, active surveillance is crucial to stop the virus propagation. Methods Between July 2020 and April 2021, 11,580 oropharyngeal swab samples collected in closed and semi-closed institutions were processed for SARS-CoV-2 detection in pools, implementing this strategy for the first time in Córdoba, Argentina. Five-sample pools were constituted before nucleic acid extraction and amplification by rRT-PCR. Comparative analysis of cycle threshold (Ct) values from positive pools and individual samples along with a cost-benefit report of the whole performance of the results was performed. Results From 2,314 5-sample pools tested, 158 were classified as positive (6.8%), 2,024 as negative (87.5%), and 132 were categorized as indeterminate (5.7%).