Clinical evaluation of real-time PCR assays for rapid diagnosis of SARS coronavirus during outbreak and post-epidemic periods

This study highlights the high throughput and performance of automatic RNA extraction in coordination with standardized real-time PCR assays suitable for large-scale routine diagnosis in case of future SARS epidemic. As no SARS CoV was detected among specimens collected during post-epidemic period, the positive predictive value of real-time PCR assays for detection of SARS CoV during low epidemic requires further evaluation.