microFLOQ® Direct: a helpful tool for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 rapid detection without RNA purification

Abstract In the context of SARS-Cov-2 virus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, molecular diagnostic tools were rapidly developed as there are fundamental for a rapid detection of infected people. In this context, and in order to optimize the manipulations and reduce the time to get results, we report the successful use of a sampling tool for COVID-19 diagnosis named microFLOQ® Direct (MFD). Hundred upper respiratory specimens sampled from patients with potential COVID-19 were evaluated using MFD, and results were compared to the results obtained by standard sampling procedure using dry swabs and physiologic serum as the transport medium. MFD results compared to results issued from the classic RNA purification and amplification steps from transport medium showed that MFD can be directly used for RT-PCR analysis without the preliminary inactivation and extraction steps. So, MFD could limit handling errors compared to the different treatment steps with dry swabs and transport medium. It therefore limits the risk of contamination, simplify the analytical process and enables to get results in less than 2 hours. We also show that the MFD kit is operational as a screening tool in the field of molecular detection of viral and bacterial diseases during an outbreak and then it can be used for public health or agro-veterinary purposes.