Quality controlled SARS-CoV-2 duplex procedure to reduce time and scarce molecular biology diagnosis reagents

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to provide validated procedures allowing to detect the SARS-CoV-2 and an internal control in a unique one-step duplex RT-qPCR. Two internal controls were tested, targeting either the Schmallenberg virus RNA provided by the NARILIS laboratory (University of Namur) with a HEX-labelled probe or a Diagenode Diagnostics internal control with a Cy5-labelled probe. Our results showed that Ct values of the RT-qPCR duplex assay were even smaller in the optimized working conditions, allowing to use the optimized qPCR conditions in routine diagnosis.