Dataset Information

Rapid Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Aotearoa New Zealand: Implementation of a Diagnostic Test and Characterization of the First COVID-19 Cases in the South Island.

ABSTRACT: It has been 20 months since we first heard of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus detected in the Hubei province, China, in December 2019, responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, a myriad of studies aimed at understanding and controlling SARS-CoV-2 have been published at a pace that has outshined the original effort to combat HIV during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. This massive response started by developing strategies to not only diagnose individual SARS-CoV-2 infections but to monitor the transmission, evolution, and global spread of this new virus. We currently have hundreds of commercial diagnostic tests; however, that was not the case in early 2020, when just a handful of protocols were available, and few whole-genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences had been described. It was mid-January 2020 when several District Health Boards across New Zealand started planning the implementation of diagnostic testing for this emerging virus. Here, we describe our experience implementing a molecular test to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection, adapting the RT-qPCR assay to be used in a random-access platform (Hologic Panther Fusion® System) in a clinical laboratory, and characterizing the first whole-genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences obtained in the South Island, right at the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in New Zealand. We expect that this work will help us and others prepare for the unequivocal risk of similar viral outbreaks in the future.

SUBMITTER: Lawley B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8623489 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Rapid Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Aotearoa New Zealand: Implementation of a Diagnostic Test and Characterization of the First COVID-19 Cases in the South Island.

Lawley Blair B Grant Jenny J Harfoot Rhodri R Treece Jackson M JM Day Robert R Hernández Leonor C LC Stanton Jo-Ann L JL Ussher James E JE Quiñones-Mateu Miguel E ME

Viruses 20211104 11

It has been 20 months since we first heard of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus detected in the Hubei province, China, in December 2019, responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, a myriad of studies aimed at understanding and controlling SARS-CoV-2 have been published at a pace that has outshined the original effort to combat HIV during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. This massive response started by developing strategies to not only diagnose individual SARS-CoV-2 infections ...[more]

PMID: 34835031

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Dataset Information

Rapid Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Aotearoa New Zealand: Implementation of a Diagnostic Test and Characterization of the First COVID-19 Cases in the South Island.

Publications

Rapid Response to SARS-CoV-2 in Aotearoa New Zealand: Implementation of a Diagnostic Test and Characterization of the First COVID-19 Cases in the South Island.

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