MILFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sin Hang Lee, MD, an internationally recognized Connecticut pathologist, in a letter yesterday to World Health Organization and White House Coronavirus Task Force representatives, offered to re-test borderline or questionable positive coronavirus samples that are growing in numbers, as testing nationwide increases. (see Letter here: 03/22/20 – SARS-CoV-2 nested RT-qPCR sequencing typing).
“As coronavirus testing expands, reports of inaccurate test results are increasing exponentially,” said Milford Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory’s (http://www.dnalymetest.com/) director, Dr. Lee.
The letter was sent to the WHO’s response team’s Dr. Margaret Harris and Dr. Eduardo Guerrero, and to the Trump administration’s Coronavirus Task Force’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“To improve the accuracy of the SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR tests, we have offered to re-test borderline or questionable positive samples with a Ct value between 37 and 40 for other laboratories by performing nested RT-PCR/Sanger sequencing of a unique 398-base segment of the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) gene.
“Our laboratory’s sequencing is one-hundred percent accurate, as demonstrated in the letter. It can also distinguish the Wuhan seafood market pneumonia strain, the two California strains, the Texas strain and the Massachusetts strain of the virus, if tracing of these mutants among patients and carriers is desired,” said Dr. Lee.
Interested laboratories with residual RNA extracts stored at -80°C are requested to send an email inquiry to Dr. Lee at shlee01@snet.net or speak with Kevin Moore at 203-788-8497 to make arrangements. The test material sample should be 10 microliter of residual RNA extract and shipped in dry ice, said Dr. Lee.