Performance of six SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection systems in symptomatic and asymptomatic pediatric and maternal patients

Aim: This study evaluated the real-world performance of six test systems for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in 138 pediatric and 110 adult maternal patients. Materials & methods: Nasopharyngeal swabs were tested directly using the Aptima™ SARS-CoV-2 (Aptima) and Simplexa™ COVID-19 Direct (Simplexa), and with Altona RealStar® RT-PCR and CDC RT-PCR with nucleic acid extracted on the Roche® MagNA Pure 96 (Altona-MP96) or bioMérieux EMAG® (Altona-EMAG). Results/Conclusion: Overall percent-positive and percent-negative agreements among the six test systems were, respectively: Aptima: 94.8 and 100%; Altona-MP96: 96.5 and 99.3%; CDC-MP96: 100 and 99.3%; Altona-EMAG: 86.1 and 100%; CDC-EMAG: 98.2 and 100%; Simplexa: 87 and 99.2%. The six test systems showed agreement ranging from 92.7 (κ = 0.85) to 98.8% (κ = 0.98).