Molecular diagnostic technologies for COVID-19: Limitations and challenges

Afzal, Adeel

To curb the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, the world needs diagnostic systems capable of rapid detection and quantification of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Many biomedical companies are rising to the challenge and developing COVID-19 diagnostics. In the last few months, some of these diagnostics have become commercially available for healthcare workers and clinical laboratories. However, the diagnostic technologies have specific limitations and reported several false-positive and false-negative cases, especially during the early stages of infection. Currently, more sophisticated and reliable molecular diagnostics are being developed to improve the COVID-19 diagnosis. This article presents an overview of the commercial and pre-commercial molecular diagnostics to address several questions and issues related to the limitations of current technologies and future research and development challenges to enable timely, rapid, low-cost, and accurate diagnosis of emerging infectious diseases.