Authors’ response: Plenty of coronaviruses but no SARS-CoV-2

Reusken, Chantal B; Haagmans, Bart; Meijer, Adam; Corman, Victor M; Papa, Anna; Charrel, Remi; Drosten, Christian; Koopmans, Marion

While the current response strategy is still focused on containment, it is becoming increasingly clear that the epidemic may turn global, in which case mitigation will be the next option to control the impact of the pandemic. Substantial autochthonous circulation in Italy, Iran and South Korea has been reported by now, while there is increasing evidence that subclinical infections occur and people may be infectious before symptoms appear [8] [9] [10] . These developments indicate that the window of opportunity to contain and eradicate is rapidly narrowing. [11] . Therefore, it is needless to state that for each phase in the control and mitigation of a novel emerging pathogen, adequate laboratory preparedness and response are crucial. The readiness survey that we performed served the important purpose of mapping the initial response capacities in Europe and identifying barriers to diagnostic implementation. Therefore, we maintain that the urgent implementation and monitoring of diagnostic capacities and capabilities for SARS-CoV-2 in Europe is proportional to the containment and expected mitigation phase of the global public health response and is critical for care of local patients. The implementation of SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics does not replace nor exclude diagnostic capacity for other respiratory viruses. Moreover, it explicitly does not disregard the importance of other seasonal respiratory pathogens for public and patient health. This is clearly illustrated by the authors themselves, who indicate that they have tested thousands of samples of patients suspected of respiratory viral disease not only for common respiratory pathogens but also for SARS-CoV-2. The fact that Colson et al. found a wide range of seasonal respiratory viruses indeed underlines the impact of such pathogens. Furthermore, it clearly shows that diagnosis of respiratory viruses cannot be done syndrome-based and supports the need for the availability of diagnostics for a panel of pathogens including SARS-CoV-2.