Development of COPMAN-Air method for high-sensitivity detection of SARS-CoV-2 in air

Several studies have successfully detected SARS-CoV-2 in air samples. However, most of these studies focused on validating the air collection method, and there was no report on the development of a virus detection method. In this study, to detect viruses in air samples with greater sensitively than conventional detection methods, we utilized COPMAN, a highly sensitive virus detection method originally used for wastewater samples. We applied COPMAN to air samples, thereby developing COPMAN-Air. Briefly, this method efficiently detects the extremely low levels of viral RNA in air samples via three reaction steps: RT, preamplification, and qPCR, as it is performed with COPMAN. We evaluated COPMAN-Air using samples from a fever clinic for COVID-19 patients. COPMAN-Air demonstrated a higher detection rate of viral RNA compared with conventional methods, detecting the virus in 22 out of 23 samples (95.7%) vs. 14 out of 23 samples (60.9%). Additionally, a positive correlation (r = 0.70) was detected between the amount of viral RNA detected by COPMAN-Air and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, suggesting that COPMAN-Air could estimate the number of SARS-CoV-2-positive individuals in a given space based on the quantitative values of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in air samples. Surveillance systems for airborne pathogens using COPMAN-Air are expected to be valuable for estimating the number of infected individuals and for guiding the implementation of public health measures.