Conclusion
Our assay can enhance the identification of genotypic variants of
SARS-CoV-2 worldwide, especially in low-resource settings where NGS and
Sanger sequencing techniques are difficult to reach out. This rapid
barcoding method may assist to reveal disease epidemiology, patient
management and protein-based drug designing, and also contribute to
modify future national policy, and vaccine development. A more
cost-effective one-step procedure based on modified tetra ARMS assay
(T-ARMS) is under development by our group that will considerably reduce
the labor and cost further.