Point-of-care diagnostics of COVID-19 in wastewater
Despite major coronavirus immunisation programmes across the world, rigorous public health surveillance and fast diagnostic tests are regarded as the most effective ways to reduce COVID-19. The reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction is the gold standard for diagnosing COVID-19 (RT-qPCR). Droplet digital RT-PCR (RT-ddPCR) provides an appealing platform for quantifying SARS-CoV-2 RNA. High sensitivity and specificity, the necessity for highly skilled workers, and the need for special facilities and expensive apparatus all limit its adoption, particularly in poor nations. Reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) is an isothermal nucleic acid amplification technology that is commonly utilised for SARS-CoV-2 detection in clinical samples. Because of its inherent benefits such as sensitivity, speed, the absence of a heat cycler, and resistance to sample inhibitors, RT-LAMP is a prospective alternative to RT-qPCR. LAMP takes less than an hou...