. 2021 Jan 6;2(1):100288. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2020.100288

Table 1.

Comparison of Commonly Used Techniques in the Detection of Pathogenic Virus

Technique	Principle	Time	Advantages	Disadvantages	Ref.
PCR	nucleic acid	hours	•well-established	•ease of contamination	¹⁶^,¹⁷
PCR	nucleic acid	hours	•small number of samples	•time consuming	¹⁶^,¹⁷
ELISA	viral protein	hours	•highly specific	•low sensitivity	¹⁸
ELISA	viral protein	hours	•highly specific	•high-quality sample preparation	¹⁸
Cell culturing	infectivity assay	days to weeks	•suitable for virus subtyping recovery of novel and divergent strains	•contamination problems	¹⁹
			•inexpensive	•time consuming and labor intensive
			•inexpensive	•unavailable for immediate patient care
Electron microscopy	viral particles	hours	•rapid method	•well-trained personnel	²⁰
Electron microscopy	viral particles	hours	•rapid method	•low specificity	²⁰
Computed tomography (CT)	chest scanning	hours	•good basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment	•technical expertise	²¹
Computed tomography (CT)	chest scanning	hours	•good basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment	•centralized facilities	²¹