New study sets out to elevate asymptomatic COVID-19 surveillance practices
New university findings highlight potential implications for cattle, diagnostics, and veterinary practice.
--- University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) faculty are collaborating with researchers at the School of Public Health (SPH) to roll out a surveillance study of COVID-19 among asymptomatic populations.
The study will compare the incidence of infection in individuals participating in asymptomatic COVID-19 surveillance to individuals with self-reported incidence of COVID-19 illness, while also investigating the performance and efficiency of a surveillance system that uses pooled testing instead of individual testing.
“The CDC has estimated that 40-50 percent of individuals infected with the COVID-19 virus are asymptomatic infections and, without testing, these individuals are likely to play a major role in disease spread,” says Scott Wells, DVM, PhD, professor in the CVM’s Department of Veterinary Population Medicine (VPM), who is leading the study.
“We expect that twice-weekly use of relatively low-cost pooled testing will identify these infected individuals, which will allow them to self-isolate and reduce the risk of spreading infection.” Wells has accumulated decades of experience using epidemiology to perform surveillance, prevention, and control measures on infectious disease in cattle and other food animal agriculture settings.
Results from this study should help clarify when pooled sample testing should be used over individual sample testing.
It will also help advance scientific understanding of the risks of disease transmission from infectious asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers.
The University of Minnesota Genomics Laboratory will test pools of five samples and expects to turn results around within 24 hours.
If a sample pool garners a positive result, the individuals whose samples were used in the pool will each be tested to identify the infected individual.
The study will rely on volunteers in the CVM community.
Eligible participants include fourth year veterinary students, as well as the veterinary technicians, faculty, residents, graduate students, and interns who instruct these students in clinical rotations.
Participants will be tested twice weekly for SARS-CoV-2 for 13 consecutive weeks.
The report adds to ongoing university-led research relevant to veterinary medicine, animal health, and clinical decision-making.
Source university website: University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine
https://vetmed.umn.edu/news/new-study-sets-out-elevate-asymptomatic-covid-19-surveillance-practices
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