Widespread contamination of SARS-CoV-2 on highly touched surfaces in Brazil during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination has been investigated in health care settings, little is known about the SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination in public urban areas, particularly in tropical countries. Here, we investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 on high-touch surfaces in a large city in Brazil, one of the most affected countries by the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. A total of 400 surface samples were collected in February 2021 in the City of Recife, Northeastern Brazil. A total of 97 samples (24.2%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-qPCR using the CDC-USA protocol. All the collection sites, except one (18/19, 94.7%) had at least one environmental surface sample contaminated. SARS-CoV-2 positivity was higher in public transport terminals (47/84, 55.9%), followed by health care units (26/84, 30.9%), beach areas (4/21, 19.0%), public parks (14/105, 13.3%), supply centre (2/21, 9.5%), and public markets (4/85, 4.7%). Toilets, ATMs, handrails, playgrounds and outdoor gyms were identified as fomites with the highest rates of SARS-CoV-2 detection. Taken together, our data provide a real-world picture of SARS-CoV-2 dispersion in highly populated tropical areas and identify critical control points that need to be targeted to break SARS-CoV-2 transmission chains.

Development and field validation of a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay (RT-LAMP) for the rapid detection of chikungunya virus in patient and mosquito samples.

OBJECTIVES: We aimed to develop a reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) platform for the rapid detection of chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in both patient and mosquito samples from Brazil. METHODS: We optimized an RT-LAMP assay and then evaluated the specificity and sensitivity using visual detection. In comparison with the RT-qPCR reference method, we validated the utility of this assay as a molecular diagnostic test in a reference laboratory for arbovirus diagnostics using 100 serum samples collected from suspected CHIKV cases. RESULTS: Our RT-LAMP assay specifically detected CHIKV without cross-reactivity against other arboviruses. The limit of detection of our RT-LAMP was estimated in -1.18 PFU (confidence interval [CI] ranging from -2.08 to 0.45), resulting in a similar analytical sensitivity when directly compared with the reference standard RT-qPCR assay. Then, we demonstrate the ability of our RT-LAMP assay to detect the virus in different human specimens (serum, urine, and saliva), and crude lysate of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in as little as 20-30 minutes and without a separate RNA isolation step. Lastly, we showed that our RT-LAMP assay could be lyophilized and reactivated by adding water, indicating potential for room-temperature storage. Our RT-LAMP had a clinical sensitivity of 100% (95% CI, 90.97-100.00%), clinical specificity of 96.72% (95% CI, 88.65-99.60%), and overall accuracy of 98.00% (95% CI, 92.96-99.76%). DISCUSSION: Taken together, these findings indicate that the RT-LAMP assay reported here solves important practical drawbacks to the deployment of molecular diagnostics in the field and can be used to improve testing capacity, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.