Scientists Introduce New COVID-19 Testing Method 8 Times More Efficient Than Individual Testing

Three Israeli scientists have recently made public a breakthrough in COVID-19 testing that according to them, is faster and more efficient than any other currently in use. The new method allows health officials to test as many as 48 people at once.

The Israeli government has announced its plan to roll out the new testing method in 12 labs by October to prepare for a potential wave of COVID-19 infection that is anticipated to coincide with the influenza season, which can result in disastrous consequences.

According to Ronen Walfisch, a Defense Ministry’s engineer, they were doing everything they could to prepare. The new method breezed through the pilot project he oversaw to test its efficiency.

The pooled-testing method, which was cleared by the Israeli health ministry for clinical use on Tuesday, was projected to allow businesses, schools, colleges, and airlines to test groups of people faster, as stated by Moran Szwarcwort Cohen, the head of a Haifa-based virology lab.

Most pooling tests currently used now rely on World War II tests for syphilis, which is also called the Dorfman method, named after the economist who invented it.

If the pool test returns negative results, all samples are considered cleared, otherwise, each individual’s sample must be tested again to see who carries the virus.

The new method developed by Israeli experts doesn’t require the second round of testing, which promises a significant saving in time and medical supplies.

The technology that drives this breakthrough is a combinatorial algorithm developed by Noam Shental working at the Open University of Israel around 10 years ago. The algorithm speeds up rare genetic mutation detecting process, much like how an error-detecting code works.

The study of Dr. Shental, Tomer Hertz, and Angel Porgador was published on Friday and it wrote about the first success of the method, called P-Best (short for Pooling-Based Efficient SARS-CoV-2 Testing). In a test, it could detect positives in a pool of 48 samples. The P-Best has successfully screened 1,115 health officials using just 144 tests.

The team took samples from 384 people and divided them into 48 pools. So each of the samples ends up in six different pools. What they did next was to test all 48 pools.

If one sample is positive, all six pools containing that sample should also be positive. This combination will reveal the identity of people having the virus.

The algorithm will change the design of the pools according to the expected prevalence of COVID-19, meaning it is possible to identify all the positive samples in one batch. However, the catch here is the method can only work if the number of positive cases doesn’t exceed the projected number.

According to Dr. Hertz, P-Best works more efficiently when the positive rates are low. With an expected infection rate of 1%, their method is eight times more efficient than individual testing and twice as effective as the Dorfman pool.

Dr. Hertz said Israeli researchers and officials are collaborating with an AI company cull samples with higher chances of being positive with knowledge of the known hot spots in order to keep the positive rates low.

One of the most common concerns regarding pool testing is the possibility of a loss of sensitivity caused by samples being diluted. However, Dr. Shental said P-Best can work even with a low viral load as each sample is tested in several different pools.

Israel is facing another surge of COVID-19, which makes many expect a second nationwide lockdown. Since the purchase of the robots needed to make the new testing method possible has been delayed, officials shared that the P-Best will only be used when the government eases the second lockdown.

The three experts involved in the development of the test has set up a company called Poold Diagnostics to bring the algorithm to US-based labs.

They said the inspiration for the new testing method came from Dr. Shental’s mother. She attended his lecture for nonscientists about pool testing to identify birth defects a few years ago and urged him to make it more available.

When COVID-19 pandemic spreading fast, she asked him if the algorithm he talked about a few years back could be used to test.

He didn’t think much of the idea at first because his mind was occupied by something else at that time. But when he drove home, he realized the idea might work.

Dr. Shental phoned his friend, Dr. Hertz, and in the next two days, Dr. Porgador joined in to test the potential of the idea with samples from the Soroka Hospital.

A while later, Dr. Daniel Chamovitz, president of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, bought the pipetting robot to test the method.

>>> Indians Will Have Free COVID-19 Shots In 73 Days, Said Report