SARS-CoV-2 Virus Culture and Subgenomic RNA for Respiratory Specimens from Patients with Mild Coronavirus Disease

• Published in: Emerging infectious diseases Vol. 26; no. 11; pp. 2701 - 2704
• Main Authors: Perera, Ranawaka A.P.M., Tso, Eugene, Tsang, Owen T.Y., Tsang, Dominic N.C., Fung, Kitty, Leung, Yonna W.Y., Chin, Alex W.H., Chu, Daniel K.W., Cheng, Samuel M.S., Poon, Leo L.M., Chuang, Vivien W.M., Peiris, Malik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States U.S. National Center for Infectious Diseases 01.11.2020; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Betacoronavirus - genetics; coronavirus; coronavirus disease; Coronavirus Infections - virology; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Disease transmission; Dispatch; Expedited; Female; Genomes; Hong Kong; Humans; Illnesses; Male; Middle Aged; Molecular diagnostic techniques; Pandemics; Patients; Pneumonia, Viral - virology; Polymerase chain reaction; Respiratory System - virology; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; RNA; RNA, Viral - analysis; SARS-CoV-2; SARS-CoV-2 Virus Culture and Subgenomic RNA for Respiratory Specimens from Patients with Mild Coronavirus Disease; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Severity of Illness Index; Virus research; viruses; Hong Kong; Hong Kong, China; China; viruses; Hong Kong; coronavirus; zoonoses; respiratory infections; subgenomic RNA; virus culture; COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; China; coronavirus disease; viral RNA load; infectivity; mild disease
• ISSN: 1080-6040; 1080-6059; 1080-6059
• DOI: 10.3201/eid2611.203219

We investigated 68 respiratory specimens from 35 coronavirus disease patients in Hong Kong, of whom 32 had mild disease. We found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and subgenomic RNA were rarely detectable beyond 8 days after onset of illness. However, virus RNA was detectable for many weeks by reverse transcription PCR.