Sample Pooling as a Strategy to Detect Community Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
Catherine A. Hogan, MD, MSc1; Malaya K. Sahoo, PhD1; Benjamin A. Pinsky, MD, PhD1
Author Affiliations Article Information
JAMA. Published online April 6, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.5445
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has revealed the global importance of robust diagnostic testing to differentiate severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) from other routine respiratory infections and guide appropriate clinical management. Given the limited testing capacity available in the United States early in the pandemic, individuals with a clinical syndrome consistent with COVID-19, but without travel or exposure history, were not tested.1 Therefore, it remains uncertain whether there may have been community circulation of SARS-CoV-2 prior to the identification of individuals with positive results through standard public health surveillance. Sample pooling, a strategy used for community monitoring of other infectious diseases such as trachoma, has not, to our knowledge, been deployed for the early comprehensive screening of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.2
