Coronavirus Variant Found in France Can Evade PCR Nasal-Swab Tests
An Anonymous Coward writes:
Coronavirus Variant Found in France Can Evade PCR Nasal-Swab Tests:
The French ministry of health and social affairs announced Monday that among a cluster of 79 COVID-19 cases in Brittany, eight patients were infected with the new variant, but several of them tested negative.
[...] The new variant does not yet have a alphanumeric designation. But it's not the first variant that appears able to evade testing. Finnish researchers announced last month that they had identified a strain named Fin-796H with a mutation that made it difficult to detect with some nasal-swab tests, too.
An inability to accurately diagnose infected people could make it harder to curtail the virus's spread at a time when cases across Europe are already spiking.
[...] The standard molecular lab tests - known as reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests - hunt for an infection in a swab from a patient's nose, looking for the coronavirus's genetic code.
But according to the French Health Directorate, genetic sequencing revealed that the variant found in Brittany has several mutations on its spike protein that help it evade detection by these diagnostic tests.
Health officials in Brittany eventually confirmed some of the cases caused by the new variant by either testing the patients' blood for antibodies or collecting samples of phlegm the patients coughed up from inside their lungs and running those through a RT-PCR test.
[...] one European diagnostics company, the Novacyt Group, announced Thursday that its PCR tests can successfully detect the new variant.
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