Trends of respiratory virus detection in point-of-care testing: A review

In resource-limited conditions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on-site detection of diseases using the Point-of-care testing (POCT) technique is becoming a key factor in overcoming crises and saving lives. For practical POCT in the field, affordable, sensitive, and rapid medical testing should be performed on simple and portable platforms, instead of laboratory facilities. In this review, we introduce recent approaches to the detection of respiratory virus targets, analysis trends, and prospects. Respiratory viruses occur everywhere and are one of the most common and widely spreading infectious diseases in the human global society. Seasonal influenza, avian influenza, coronavirus, and COVID-19 are examples of such diseases. On-site detection and POCT for respiratory viruses are state-of-the-art technologies in this field and are commercially valuable global healthcare topics. Cutting-edge POCT techniques have focused on the detection of respiratory viruses for early diagnosis, prevention, and monitoring to protect against the spread of COVID-19. In particular, we highlight the application of sensing techniques to each platform to reveal the challenges of the development stage. Recent POCT approaches have been summarized in terms of principle, sensitivity, analysis time, and convenience for field applications. Based on the analysis of current states, we also suggest the remaining challenges and prospects for the use of the POCT technique for respiratory virus detection to improve our protection ability and prevent the next pandemic.