Point-of-Care (POC) diagnostics for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and their potential impact on dentistry

The COVID-19 pandemic, due to SARS-CoV-2, which began in late 2019, has virtually engulfed the whole world while incessantly spreading in some regions, and gradually receding in others. The morbidity and the mortality of the disease is breathtaking, and makes for grim reading with 179 million infections and 3.88 million deaths worldwide at the time of writing (July 2021).¹ The miraculous production of effective and efficacious COVID-19 vaccines within the relatively short span of 1 year, and their prompt administration have curbed the viral spread in most regions. For instance, in the People's Republic of China, where up to a billion people have been vaccinated thus far, the disease has been virtually conquered, with sporadic pockets of resurgent infection. In other parts of the world such as the UK, Europe and USA the infection is slowly but surely receding.

Unfortunately, although there are many regions, particularly Asia, where COVID-19 is rampantly spreading with few signs of disease abeyance in the near future, particularly due to vaccine insufficiency, as well as the waves of infection and re-infection caused by periodically emerging viral variants. At the time of writing, four major SARS-CoV-2 variants, alpha (UK), beta (African), gamma (Brazilian) and delta (Indian) have been identified, and more appear to be on the way, as long as the pandemic persists in any region of the world.² While most of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines are highly efficacious in preventing the infections due to the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, they are significantly less effective in preventing variant-induced disease.² Such statistics and data are a clear indication of the chronic, and dogged ability of the virus to survive and circulate in the community for the next few years, at least.