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Park, Kim, Lee, Ha, Jeon, Lee, and Ryoo: Experience at Department of Laboratory Medicine during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Daegu
Original Article

Ann Clin Microbiol 2020;23(4):225-231.

Published online: 30 December 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5145/ACM.2303.23.4.1

Experience at Department of Laboratory Medicine during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Daegu

Sunggyun Park1, Do-Hoon Kim1, Won-Mok Lee1, Jung-Sook Ha1, Dong-Seok Jeon1, Jae-Hee Lee2, Namhee Ryoo1, *

1Department of Laboratory Medicine, Keimyung University School of Medicine, Korea

2Daegu Dongsan Hospital, Daegu, Korea

Corresponding author: Namhee Ryoo E-mail: nhryoo@dsmc.or.kr

Received 15 July 2020       Revised 11 August 2020       Accepted 21 September 2020

© Korean Society of Clinical Microbiology. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.

Abstract

The first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Korea was reported in January 2020. As the secondary transmissions accelerated within the country, the government revised the outbreak alert for COVID-19 from attention to caution. Mid-February, when a massive outbreak was reported from a church in Daegu, our institution initiated testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). More than 300 laboratory tests were performed within the first 2 months, before the number of cases began to decline. Here, we describe our experience of 4 months at the department of Laboratory Medicine, Keimyung University Dongsan Hospital, located in Daegu, where a massive COVID-19 outbreak occurred.

Keywords: COVID-19, Daegu, Laboratory medicine, PCR, SARS-CoV-2

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article were reported.

REFERENCES

1. Kim JY, Choe PG, Oh Y, Oh KJ, Kim J, Park SJ, et al. The first case of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia imported into Korea from Wuhan, China: implication for infection prevention and control measures. J Korean Med Sci 2020;35:e61.
2. Ge H, Wang X, Yuan X, Xiao G, Wang C, Deng T, et al. The epidemiology and clinical information about COVID-19. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 2020;39:1011-9.
3. Hong KH, Lee SW, Kim TS, Huh HJ, Lee J, Kim SY, et al. Guidelines for laboratory diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Korea. Ann Lab Med 2020;40:351-60.
4. Sung H, Roh KH, Hong KH, Seong MW, Ryoo N, Kim HS, et al. COVID-19 molecular testing in Korea: practical essentials and answers from experts based on experiences of emergency use authorization assays. Ann Lab Med 2020;40:439-47.

Table 1
Criteria for the interpretation of SARS-CoV-2 molecular tests in the confirmed patients
acm_2304_001-t1.png

Abbreviations: Ct, cycle of threshold; E, envelope gene; RdRp, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene; N, nucleocapsid gene; IC, internal control.

Table 2
Initial interpretation criteria of SARS-CoV-2 molecular tests in the suspected patients
acm_2304_001-t2.png

*When the test is repeated with Kogene, positive criteria for RdRp gene is ≤35.Abbreviations: Ct, cycle of threshold; E, envelope gene; RdRp, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene; N, nucleocapsid gene; IC, internal control; ORF, open-reading frame gene.

Fig. 1.
Distribution of "Indeterminate" results according to three specific genes, separately or in combination.Abbreviations: R, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene; E, envelope gene; N, nucleocapsid gene.
acm_2304_001-f1.png
Fig. 2.
Status of SARS-CoV-2 molecular tests with newly confirmed cases. The newly confirmed cases displayed in orange within positive cases (blue bar).
acm_2304_001-f2.png
Fig. 3.
Cumulative monthly number of SARS-CoV-2 molecular tests and positive rate.
acm_2304_001-f3.png
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