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Are you aware of this RAT for diagnosing Covid-19 infection in just TEN minutes!!
Posted on: 05/Mar/2021 9:21:56 AM
Faster than the RT-PCR test for diagnosing Covid-19 infection, this new RAT for diagnosing Covid-19 is making many heads turn now!!
A study has confirmed that saliva based rapid antigen tests or RAT could be effective, faster and economical for Covid-19 diagnosis. Sounds interesting right!!
The above study has been conducted by CDRF or Chennai Dental Research Foundation, VHS or Voluntary Health Services and Ragas Dental College and Hospital. It is brought out that the results achieved the minimum standards set by the ICMR. Fifty percent sensitivity is needed as per ICMR and the RAT recorded a sensitivity of 56percent. The specificity of this new test was 100% but 95% specificity has been set by ICMR.
It was brought to light by Mr. Gunaseelan Rajan, president of CDRF that the greatest advantage of RAT was it was faster than the usual RT-PCR tests done to diagnose Covid-19. He hinted that this new test was safe and it was possible for any person to take up this test at his or her home/office.
In this RAT, saliva is being used for diagnosing Covid-19 infection and it has been fast and highly effective. He then explained that the new RAT could be used for mass screening, rapid screening, by the dentists and by the ENT doctors as it has the ability to detect the virus in just 10 minutes.
It is worthy to note that the CDRF had written about the findings to the Centre and the results were accepted to be published in the international journal ‘Oral Diseases’ in February 2021.
It was mentioned by Dr. Priya, scientist and head of department of clinical research, VHS that RAT took just 15 minutes as against a maximum of 3 hours for RT-PCR testing. For saliva testing, the researchers adopted a commercially available kit. Point is that a positive saliva test was confirmatory and a negative test must be followed by RT-PCR tests.
It is worthy to mention that in the study 27 RT-PCR positive and 10 RT-PCR negative whole mouth fluid or WMF samples were selected. Using a commercially available naso-pharyngeal swab RAT from Korea, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antigen was tested.
