A Comprehensive Review of Detection Methods for SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

Recently, the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in China and its subsequent spread across the world has caused numerous infections and deaths and disrupted normal social activity. Presently, various techniques are used for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection, with various advantages and weaknesses to each. In this paper, we summarize promising methods, such as reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), serological testing, point-of-care testing, smartphone surveillance of infectious diseases, nanotechnology-based approaches, biosensors, amplicon-based metagenomic sequencing, smartphone, and wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) that can also be utilized for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. In addition, we discuss principles, advantages, and disadvantages of these detection methods, and highlight the potential methods for the development of additional techniques and products for early and fast detection of SARS-CoV-2.