Rapid diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 using potential point-of-care electrochemical immunosensor: Toward the future prospects

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an emerging and highly infectious disease making global public health concern and socio-economic burden. It is caused due to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). It has the tendency to spread rapidly through person-to-person. Currently, several molecular diagnostic platforms such as PCR, qRT-PCR, reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP), CRISPR are utilized for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2. These conventional techniques are costly, time consuming and require sophisticated instrumentation facility with well trained personnel for testing. Hence, it is tough to provide testing en-masse to the people in developing countries. On the other hand, several serological biosensors such as lateral flow immunosensor, optical, electrochemical, microfluidics integrated electrochemical/fluorescence is currently utilized for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2. In current pandemic situation, there is an urgent need of rapid and efficient diagnosis on mass scale of SARS-CoV-2 for early stage detection. Early monitoring of viral infections can help to control and prevent the spreading of infections in large chunk of population. In this review, the SARS-CoV-2 and their biomarkers in biological samples, collection of samples and recently reported potential electrochemical immunosensors for the rapid diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 are discussed.