Laboratory testing strategy recommendations for COVID-19: interim guidance
Interim guidance
21 March 2020
| COVID-19: Critical preparedness, readiness and response
Overview
Diagnostic testing for COVID-19 is critical to tracking the virus, understanding epidemiology, informing case management, and to suppressing transmission. This document describes the strategic use of diagnostic testing in different transmission scenarios of the COVID-19 outbreak, from no cases to community transmission, including how testing might be rationalized when lack of reagents or testing capacity necessitates prioritization of certain populations or individuals for testing.
Previous versions:
Laboratory testing of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in suspected human cases: interim guidance (17 January 2020)
WHO Team
WHO Headquarters (HQ)
Number of pages
5
Reference numbers
WHO Reference Number: WHO/2019-nCoV/lab_testing/2020.1
Copyright
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO