August 19, 2021 – The SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to evolve, potentially creating an increased risk of infection in both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, said Manoj Gandhi, senior medical director for Genetic Testing Solutions, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Because of this, “surveillance testing is critical as we learn to live with this virus,” he said.
As reported earlier this week in the Dail-eNews, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Waltham, MA) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for the TaqPath COVID-19 Fast PCR Combo Kit 2.0 and the TaqPath COVID-19 RNase P Combo Kit 2.0, both highly accurate assays designed with increased target redundancy to compensate for current mutations and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Dr. Gandhi responded to several questions that Repertoire’s sister publication, The Journal of Healthcare Contracting (JHC), sent to him regarding the importance of surveillance testing.
JHC: Why will variant surveillance be critical in the coming weeks and months (and even years)?
Dr. Gandhi: At the onset of the pandemic, it was important that we had diagnostic tests that were able to detect infection in patients and guide management and the Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA) greatly helped with this. As the pandemic has progressed, the virus has also evolved and the current circulating strains have acquired different biological properties as compared to the original strain, such as increased transmissibility, ability to cause severe disease or evade vaccines. Such strains have been referred to as Variants of Concern (VOC).
In the coming months and the next few years, in addition to the diagnostic tests that are able to…