Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

June 26, 2020

Evaluation of Rapid Antigen Test for Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Virus

Category:

Topic:

  • Mak et al. found that the rapid BIOCREDIT COVID-19 Ag test for SARS-CoV-2 antigen, which can provide results within 30 minutes and without specialized equipment, had a markedly lower sensitivity than viral culture or RT-PCR (29% to 82% compared to RT-PCR positive samples). 
  • These results indicate that testing of patients suspected of SARS-CoV-2 infection with antigen-based assay may produce more false negative results in clinical practice compared to RT-PCR testing. 

Mak et al. (June 8, 2020). Evaluation of Rapid Antigen Test for Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Virus. Journal of Clinical Virology . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcv.2020.104500