A team of scientists and doctors from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a SARS-CoV-2 RNA sampling method, which doesn't involve swab tests, in an indoor setting.

The nucleic acid coding for the COVID-19 virus is known as SARS-CoV-2 RNA.

According to Professor Paul Tambyah, deputy head of NUS Medicine's Infectious Diseases Translational Research Programme, their study revealed the detection of viral RNA in the air, which is the "strength" of the device and procedure.

The approach was tested in two inpatient wards in a hospital caring for active COVID-19 patients by a team of scientists and doctors from NTU's Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) and NUS' Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

NUS and NTU in a joint news release on Friday, said their air surveillance approach produced a "higher detection rate" of environmental virus RNA when compared to surface swab samples taken in the same location.

"If we can put it in a place where we think that there's no COVID patients, then if you find viral RNA, then that's like doing a swab PCR for 30 people," Tambyah said. "

"Instead of doing a swab PCR for 30 people you're doing it just through one filter. And then you can know what are the targeted precautions that you need to take."

The study was done in two hospital wards: a naturally ventilated open-cohort ward and a mechanically ventilated isolation ward, between February and May 2020.

Patients were moved to open cohort wards from single isolation rooms after the COVID-19 outbreak in migrant worker dorms last year, and performing the study in these wards was "much closer to what happens in the real world," Prof Tambyah said.

Beyond determining whether there was an infected person in the room or environment, the device can assist in determining whether the level of SARS-CoV-2 RNA is too high, posing an infection risk, according to Professor Stephan Schuster, SCELSE's deputy center director.

The goal, according to researchers, was to see if we could detect live virus in the air. Even if they didn't, the goal is to investigate if these instruments can be used to detect the virus in a public setting, eliminating the need for a blanket lockdown, travel ban, or even quarantine.