Vials containing SSTM. Credit: Vikram Saini
Researchers have developed a highly effective microbial transport medium that can be used to neutralize SARS-CoV-2, and transport virus-laden clinical samples to labs for diagnosis1.
The medium can tolerate a wide range of temperatures, negating the need for refrigerated transport and storage systems. It showed higher sensitivity than a commercial virus transport (VTM) medium in the diagnosis of COVID-19 patients with or without symptoms, report researchers from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.
The team, which collaborated with scientists from the Defence Research and Development Organisation in Delhi and the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute in Haryana, prepared three different solutions and tested their efficiency in killing a broad range of microbes, including SARS-CoV-2.
Led by Vikram Saini from AIIMS, they found that the solutions killed several microbes between 5 and 180 minutes after exposure, and neutralized the SARS-CoV-2 within 15 minutes. The most potent microbe killer was called SupraSens microbial transport medium (SSTM).
SSTM’s efficiency at extracting viral RNA from clinical samples was much higher than that of a VTM at 25 °C and 45 °C, a usual summer temperature range in large parts of India. It retained its RNA recovery efficiency even when a sample was processed 10 days after collection.
SSTM would minimize the need for biosafety cabinets which are difficult to transport in remote and hilly areas, the researchers note.
