False negative SARS-CoV-2 PCR - A case report and literature review

The first case of the novel Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency. Countries around the world advised social distancing, businesses and schools closed, while health care workers faced a viral war. With the declaration of a global emergency, a test to rapidly detect the SARS-CoV-2 was developed to ensure swift isolation of infected persons to prevent spread of disease. Currently, the gold standard for test is Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR); however, patients with a high clinical suspicion for COVID-19 can sometimes have multiple negative tests. We discuss a patient under investigation (PUI) who had classic findings of COVID-19 but repeatedly tested negative from nasopharyngeal swabs until a fifth sample obtained from a deep suctioning was tested.