КОРОНАВІРУСНА ХВОРОБА(COVID-19). ВИКЛИКИ ТА ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ СПЕЦИФІЧНОЇ ДІАГНОСТИКИ

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which started in the late 2019 in China, has become an unforeseen challenge to the health care system of all the countries in the world. Establishment of a mass specific diagnostics of emergent infection caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was one of the problems that needed immediate solution. This review presents the technologies used for the specific diagnostics of COVID-19. The advantages and limitations of the most common methodologies for detection of the pathogen or virus-specific antibodies are discussed. Detection of the virus genome fragments by reverse transcription and real-time polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) allowed to achieve high accuracy of diagnosis. From the beginning of the pandemic, this method has been considered as the "gold" standard, despite the limitations associated with its high cost, complexity and the need for testing in specialized laboratories. Cheaper immunological methods have insufficient diagnostic efficiency and can be used only as complements to molecular testing. The review also presents promising methods of specific diagnostics of COVID-19 which are based on molecular genetic technologies, characterized by simplicity and rapidity, do not require expensive equipment and can be performed in points of care.