The Role of Surveillance Inspections in Reducing False-Positives of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variants during the COVID-19 Epidemic

• Published in: The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology Vol. 2023; pp. 8508975 - 8
• Main Authors: Liu, Li-Li, Zheng, Yu-Hong, Zhang, You-Quan, Lin, Jin-Piao, Luo, Zhi-Lin, Yu, Liu-Min, Gao, Shi-Hua, Chen, Falin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Egypt Hindawi 19.04.2023; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Hindawi Limited
• Subjects: Acids; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Decision making; Disease transmission; Epidemics; False positive reactions; Genes; Genomes; Health aspects; Infectious diseases; Inspection; Inspections; Laboratories; Medical laboratories; Medical screening; Methods; Normal distribution; Nucleic acids; Population; Prevention; Quality control; Quality management; Screening; Sentinel health events; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Statistics; Surveillance; Viral diseases; China
• ISSN: 1712-9532; 1918-1493
• DOI: 10.1155/2023/8508975

Objective. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of surveillance inspections conducted by the provincial health committee in Quanzhou city during a COVID-19 outbreak in reducing false-positive results in SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR assays. Method. The team conducted on-site inspections of laboratories that participated in mass screening, recording any violations of rules. Results. The positive cases in five rounds of mass screening were 23, 173, and 4 in Licheng District, Fengze District, and Luojang District, respectively. The false-positive rates in the five rounds of mass screening were 0.0099%, 0.0063%, 0.0018%, 0.0006%, and 0%, respectively. The study also recorded that the number of violations in the seven selected laboratories was 36, 68, 69, 42, 60, 54 and 47. The corresponding false-positive rates were 0.0012%, 0.0060%, 0.0082%, 0.0032%, 0.0060%, 0.0027%, and 0.0021%, respectively. The study found a positive correlation between false-positive rates and the number of violations (r = 0.905, P=0.005), and an inverse correlation between false-positive rates and the frequency of surveillance inspections (r = −0.950, P<0.001). Conclusion. Daily surveillance inspection in laboratories can remind laboratories to strictly comply with standard procedures, focus on laboratory quality control, and reduce the occurrence of false-positive cases in SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid tests to some extent. This study recommends that government decision-making departments establish policies and arrange experts to conduct daily surveillance inspections to improve laboratory quality control.