A Colorimetric Test to Differentiate Patients Infected with Influenza from COVID‐19

Kozlowski, Hannah N.; Abdou Mohamed, Mohamed A.; Kim, Jisung; Bell, Natalie G.; Zagorovsky, Kyryl; Mubareka, Samira; Chan, Warren C. W.

Patients infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 and influenza display similar symptoms, but treatment requirements are different. Clinicians need to accurately distinguish SARS‐CoV‐2 from influenza to provide appropriate treatment. Here, the authors develope a color‐based technique to differentiate between patients infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 and influenza A using a nucleic acid enzyme‐gold nanoparticle (GNP) molecular test requiring minimal equipment. The MNAzyme and GNP probes are designed to be robust to viral mutations. Conserved regions of the viral genomes are targeted, and two MNAzymes are created for each virus. The ability of the system to distinguish between SARS‐CoV‐2 and influenza A using 79 patient samples is tested. When detecting SARS‐CoV‐2 positive patients, the clinical sensitivity is 90%, and the specificity is 100%. When detecting influenza A, the clinical sensitivity and specificity are 93% and 100%, respectively. The high clinical performance of the MNAzyme‐GNP assay shows that it can be used to help clinicians choose effective treatments.