An alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 - escape from the NA extraction kit-shortage, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 2020

The World Health Organisation has declared a pandemic caused by the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2. Due to growing demand for reagents used for SARS-CoV-2 RNA extraction for subsequent molecular diagnostics, there is a worldwide risk of kit- and/or reagent-shortages for extraction. With a detection sensitivity of 97.4% (95% CI=86.2-99.9%), we describe a simple, fast, alternative workflow for molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2, where samples are simply heat-processed for 5 minutes at 98°C prior to the RT-qPCR reaction.