Verdun, C.M.* ; Fuchs, T.* ; Harar, P.* ; Elbrächter, D.* ; Fischer, D.S. ; Berner, J.* ; Grohs, P.* ; Theis, F.J. ; Krahmer, F.*
Group testing for SARS-CoV-2 allows for up to 10-fold efficiency increase across realistic scenarios and testing strategies.
Front. Publ. Health 9:583377 (2021)
Background: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, demand for diagnostic testing has increased drastically, resulting in shortages of necessary materials to conduct the tests and overwhelming the capacity of testing laboratories. The supply scarcity and capacity limits affect test administration: priority must be given to hospitalized patients and symptomatic individuals, which can prevent the identification of asymptomatic and presymptomatic individuals and hence effective tracking and tracing policies. We describe optimized group testing strategies applicable to SARS-CoV-2 tests in scenarios tailored to the current COVID-19 pandemic and assess significant gains compared to individual testing. Methods: We account for biochemically realistic scenarios in the context of dilution effects on SARS-CoV-2 samples and consider evidence on specificity and sensitivity of PCR-based tests for the novel coronavirus. Because of the current uncertainty and the temporal and spatial changes in the prevalence regime, we provide analysis for several realistic scenarios and propose fast and reliable strategies for massive testing procedures. Key Findings: We find significant efficiency gaps between different group testing strategies in realistic scenarios for SARS-CoV-2 testing, highlighting the need for an informed decision of the pooling protocol depending on estimated prevalence, target specificity, and high- vs. low-risk population. For example, using one of the presented methods, all 1.47 million inhabitants of Munich, Germany, could be tested using only around 141 thousand tests if the infection rate is below 0.4% is assumed. Using 1 million tests, the 6.69 million inhabitants from the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, could be tested as long as the infection rate does not exceed 1%. Moreover, we provide an interactive web application, available at www.grouptexting.com, for visualizing the different strategies and designing pooling schemes according to specific prevalence scenarios and test configurations. Interpretation: Altogether, this work may help provide a basis for an efficient upscaling of current testing procedures, which takes the population heterogeneity into account and is fine-grained towards the desired study populations, e.g., mild/asymptomatic individuals vs. symptomatic ones but also mixtures thereof. Funding: German Science Foundation (DFG), German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, and Austrian Science Fund (FWF).
Impact Factor
Scopus SNIP
Web of Science
Times Cited
Scopus
Cited By
Altmetric
Publikationstyp
Artikel: Journalartikel
Dokumenttyp
Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
Typ der Hochschulschrift
Herausgeber
Schlagwörter
Covid-19 ; Rt-pcr ; Sars-cov-2 ; Group Testing ; Informative Testing ; Pooling; Defective Members
Keywords plus
Sprache
englisch
Veröffentlichungsjahr
2021
Prepublished im Jahr
HGF-Berichtsjahr
2021
ISSN (print) / ISBN
2296-2565
e-ISSN
2296-2565
ISBN
Bandtitel
Konferenztitel
Konferzenzdatum
Konferenzort
Konferenzband
Quellenangaben
Band: 9,
Heft: ,
Seiten: ,
Artikelnummer: 583377
Supplement: ,
Reihe
Verlag
Frontiers
Verlagsort
Lausanne
Tag d. mündl. Prüfung
0000-00-00
Betreuer
Gutachter
Prüfer
Topic
Hochschule
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Veröffentlichungsdatum
0000-00-00
Anmeldedatum
0000-00-00
Anmelder/Inhaber
weitere Inhaber
Anmeldeland
Priorität
Begutachtungsstatus
Peer reviewed
POF Topic(s)
30205 - Bioengineering and Digital Health
Forschungsfeld(er)
Enabling and Novel Technologies
PSP-Element(e)
G-503800-001
Förderungen
Joachim Herz Stiftung
German Science Foundation
BMBF
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF (advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation)
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
German research foundation (DFG) fellowship through the Graduate School of Quantitative Biosciences Munich (QBM)
German Science Foundation (DFG)
Copyright
Erfassungsdatum
2021-10-13