Background: SARS CoV-2 infection took the whole world by storm in the final month of 2019.Different measures have been taken to reduce its spread by timely and accurate detection of COVID 19(coronavirus disease 2019) infection in suspected patients and theircontacts. Aim: This study was conducted to assess commercially available five Rt pcr (reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction) kits from different manufacturers available in our center for diagnostic testing ofSARS CoV-2 infection .94 oropharyngeal clinical samples, previously confirmed as 64 positive and 30 negative for SARS CoV-2 were extracted and amplified separately by each of the five Rt pcr kitsand the results compared.