{"id":137104,"date":"2020-09-12T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=137104"},"modified":"2020-09-12T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T20:30:00","slug":"rat-can-be-no-more-than-adjunct-to-rt-pcr-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2020\/09\/12\/rat-can-be-no-more-than-adjunct-to-rt-pcr-scientists\/","title":{"rendered":"RAT can be no more than adjunct to RT-PCR: Scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI, Sep 11:<\/strong> Rapid antigen tests (RAT) for Covid-19 are cheaper and deliver quicker results but should be no more than an adjunct to the more reliable RT-PCR tests because of the potential for false negative results, say scientists.<\/p>\n

The union health ministry’s move on Thursday to direct all states and union territories to mandatorily retest all symptomatic negative cases of RATs with RT-PCR is the right strategy, they said.<\/p>\n

The ministry noted that symptomatic cases tested negative by RATs are not followed up by RT-PCR testing in some large states. The idea is that no positive Covid-19 cases are missed.<\/p>\n

Labelling RATs “spuriously comforting,” immunologist Satyajit Rath said it is also known that there are false negative outcomes in the tests.<\/p>\n

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) knew this all along and advised RAT-negative symptomatic people to be retested with RT-PCR tests, the scientist from New Delhi’s National Institute of Immunology (NII) told PTI.<\/p>\n

Virologist Shahid Jameel added that RATs have a field sensitivity of 50-60 percent and show many false negatives.<\/p>\n

“If someone has symptoms, he\/she should be retested. This is the correct thing to do,” Jameel told PTI.<\/p>\n

RT-PCR tests ‘amplify’ viral RNA while detecting it, but antigen tests do not do any such amplification of the detected viral protein, the experts noted.<\/p>\n

Because of this amplification step, RT-PCR tests for viral RNA are more sensitive than antigen tests, they said. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW DELHI, Sep 11: Rapid antigen tests (RAT) for Covid-19 are cheaper and deliver quicker results but should be no more than an adjunct to the more reliable RT-PCR tests because of the potential for false negative results, say scientists. The union health ministry’s move on Thursday to direct all states and union territories to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-137104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}