Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, and has since spread globally, resulting in the ongoing 2019-20 (and now 2021) coronavirus pandemic. The first confirmed case of what was then an unknown coronavirus was traced back to November 2019 in Hubei. Common symptoms include fever, dry cough, fatigue, sputum production, loss of smell, and shortness of breath. While the majority of cases result in mild symptoms, some cases progress to viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure. Emergency symptoms include difficulty breathing, persistent chest pain or pressure, confusion, difficulty waking, and bluish face or lips. The time from exposure to onset of symptoms is typically around five days but may range from two to fourteen days.
As of December 4th, 2020, more than 67.3 million cases have been reported across 185 countries and territories, resulting in more than 1.54 million deaths. On December 2nd, 2020 the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved in the United Kingdom, followed by approval in the United States (under Emergency Use Authorization [EUA]) on December 11th , 2020. Numerous antiviral and anti-inflammatory treatments have been proposed for COVID-19. Today, management involves the treatment of symptoms, supportive care, isolation, and experimental measures. The WHO has published several testing protocols for the disease [7]. The standard method of testing is real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). The test is typically done on respiratory samples obtained by a nasopharyngeal swab and more recently mid-turbinate and anterior nares nasal swab, and sputum sample or saliva may also be used. Results are generally available within 12-18 hours but can take upwards of two - four days depending on the testing needs of the community. Blood tests can be used, but these require two blood samples taken two weeks apart, and the results have little immediate value. Blood tests can be used to detect antibodies to the virus. The FDA in the United States authorized under EUA the first antigen point-of-care test on 21 March 2020 for use at the end of that month and more recently Lucira has received EUA authorization for at-home-testing.
The FDA has continued to request novel, molecular diagnostic tests which can be offered as point-of-care tests with the potential for future at-home use with a prescription. Pine Trees Health believes our Pine Trees Health Test System offers an important improvement to the global testing challenge, providing a state-of-the-art CRISPR-based test for detecting SARS-CoV-2 with sensitivity comparable to the gold standard RT-qPCR (Limit of Detection of 300 copies/mL, sensitivity >95%, specificity >99%). The Pine Trees Health Test System thus offers a low-cost and scalable alternative which will be utilized in this clinical study protocol and enable our EUA submission based on the data generated.
