Analysis of the domestic market for COVID-19 diagnostic kits by real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction

COVID-19 is a disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Outbreaks were first reported in China on December 31, 2019. Exactly one month later, the WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, and on March 11, it was declared a pandemic. In February, the infection began to spread rapidly to various countries, with Europe declared the center. By April 17, 2020, cases had been confirmed in all subjects of the Russian Federation. At the beginning of September 2020, the number of cases exceeded one million; at November 19, two million; at December 26, three million. At February 10, 2021, four million; at May 23, five million; at July 20, six million; at September 5, seven million; at October 18, eight million; at November 13, nine million; and at December 12, 2021, ten million. The rapid spread of the virus, accompanied by a significant increase in the number of infections and deaths. A total of about 18.6 million cases were recorded at the end of the first half of 2022. The total number of deaths from coronavirus in Russia at that time was 382,313 (2.06% of all cases). The number of tests performed by various analytical methods amounted to over 274, 5 million, i.e. 1.9 million per 1 million population. The rapid spread and the increase in new infections caused by SARS-CoV-2 made it necessary to use new epidemiological and diagnostic approaches based on fast, accurate and reliable technology for detecting the infectious agent. One such virus detection method is polymerase chain reaction with reverse transcription and real-time detection of the results. The review presents the domestic market offerings of PCR diagnostic kits and provides their comparative consumer characteristics.