Abstract
Clinical samples collected in COVID-19 patients are commonly manipulated in BSL-2 laboratories for diagnostic purpose. We used the French norm NF-EN-14476+A2 derived from the European standard EN-14885. To avoid the risk of exposure of laboratory workers, we showed that Triton-X100 must be added to guanidinium thiocyanate-lysis buffers to obtain a 6-log reduction of infectious virus. Although heating protocol consisting of 92°C-15min was more effective rather than 56°C-30min and 60°C-60min to achieve 6-log reduction, it is not amenable for molecular detection on respiratory specimens because of important decrease of detectable RNA copies in the treated sample vs untreated sample. The 56°C-30min and 60°C-60min should be used for inactivation of serum / plasma samples for serology because of the 5log10 reduction of infectivity and low viral loads in blood specimens.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Footnotes
composition of the lysis has been corrected according to Qiagen MSDS the corrected portions are in blue
