| dc.description.abstract | Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is an infectious disease which has
resulted in 643,176,637 confirmed cases and 6,634,815 deaths worldwide. RT-PCR
examination of naso/oropharyngeal swab specimens is the Gold Standard in
diagnosing Covid-19. This study aimed to determine the effect of nasopharyngeal
swab specimen storage on CT values. The swab samples were taken randomly from
30 patients at Martha Friska Multatuli Hospital, Medan. The swab samples were
obtained from the suspected patients or the person who had close contacts with
them. The confirmed RT-PCR results had been confirmed by RNA extraction, and
cDNA synthesized using an RT-PCR machine. From the 30 samples, there were 18
samples positive 12 samples were negative. Among 6 positive samples, there were
samples had 2 low CT value, 2 with medium CT, and the others 2 had high CT
values. Those samples were stored at temperature storage of -20°C and
temperature storage of 4°C. The positive samples from each group were grouped
again according to the CT ORF1ab value. The result shows the viral load value
obtained in each treatment gave an different CT values in storage temperature. The
positive samples could be stored at -20°C for 5 days without losing positivity, the
samples with low CT and medium CT viral loads could be stored at -20°C for 12
days without losing positivity. However, the samples with high CT values could not
be stored for 12 days at -20°C | en_US |
