Development of Viral Inactivation Buffer for the transportation of viral contaminated samples

Current Covid-19 testing of patient samples follows guidelines published by the World Health Organisation (WHO), which have been followed by health organisations in developed countries such as the National Health Service in the UK and Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA. These protocols all transport virus 'live' in a cell preservation media that must be kept cool (2 -- 8°C) and has a limited life due to degradation. These samples are potentially infective and necessitate handling as Class Level 3 pathogens from when they are collected from the patient, through shipping, to inactivation in the initial processing at analytical laboratories. This limits the number of laboratories that are able to perform sample testing. During previous Ebola outbreaks (another RNA virus), methods were developed to allow sampling that denatured samples by immersion of swabs in a chemical denaturant that killed the virus and allowed processing by laboratories at a significant reduction in risk in the supply and analysis chain. This methodology of denaturation of swabs by immediate immersion in high molarity guanidine thiocyanate solutions has been shown to be effective in denaturation of both Ebola (with the addition of detergent) and Influenza A viruses and is compatible with high throughput processing in labs. Validation of a viral inactivation buffer (VIB) for Covid-19 samples would not only reduce the risk throughout the analysis chain from sampling to analysis, but also increase the number of laboratories able to process these samples at the lower risk category, with a significant reduction in processing time and the ability to test larger volumes of samples at a local level. This methodology has also been shown to increase the stability of samples, reducing the need for cold shipping and improving sample consistency due to the denaturation of RNAses within the samples.