Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has
become infamous recently due to its capability to cause a severe disease known as
coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Believed to have originated from Wuhan, Hubei
province, China, SARS-CoV-2 has impacted a global scale, thereby making the World
Health Organization (WHO) declare COVID-19 a pandemic. The range of R0 values is
between 2.43 and 3.10, showing the severity of the disease, highlighting this concern
for health and public administration authorities. The major preventive steps from the
governments and public health authorities are to conduct aggressive diagnostic tests
and isolate the patients until the complete recovery of COVID-19. Out of various
diagnostic methods, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is an
appropriate technique. The amplified RNA/DNA molecules can be quantified through
quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). In this chapter, the basics of PCR shall be
discussed along with the quantification of RNA from SARS-CoV-2 infected tissue
samples.
Keywords: Coronavirus, COVID-19, Diagnosis, PCR, qPCR, RT-PCR.
