Mini Review - Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology (2021) Volume 4, Issue 1
Importance of detection systems of real-time PCR for novel coronavirus-19 diagnosis.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a contiguous infectious disease, caused by SARS-CoV2. The presence of this new virus was unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, a major metropolitan city of China, in December 2019. As per WHO, it has been recently characterized as a pandemic disease, and would be a one of the agents of potentially deadly diseases that are a great public health threat of 21st century. As the occurrence of COVID-19 is quite new, hence the appropriate and early detection of this virus is a major challenge for the doctors and scientists alike. However, so far there are several detection tools for the covid-19 infection which are being in use includes methods that detect the presence of the virus itself (RT-PCR and antigen detection) and those that detect antibodies produced in response to infection. Nevertheless all these methods are having some pros and cons. Therefore, a reliable, fast and low cost diagnosis tool is urgently required for the detection of COVID-19 infection. In this review article, we emphasize the significance of real-time PCR technology, which is one of the finest options for the detection of presence of viral genome in patients. However, real-time PCR further relies on different detection chemistries that play a critical role in screening out a reliable result in cost effective manner.
Author(s): Jai Prakash Muyal, Basav Hazarika