Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

November 13, 2020

Comparison of SARS-COV-2 Nasal Antigen Test to Nasopharyngeal RT-PCR in Mildly Symptomatic Patients

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  • [Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A study evaluating the diagnostic performance of a rapid antigen detection test (RADT) indicated that the sensitivity and specificity were 82.1% and 99.1% respectively in patients with mild COVID-19 in a high incidence setting, and the performance was especially high among samples with a high viral load. Nasal samples from male patients (n = 4183) with mild symptoms were tested using both the RADT and RT-PCR, and the kappa coefficient of agreement between the rapid antigen test and RT-PCR was 0.859. The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in the study population was 17.5%. The authors note that this test was intended to supplement RT-PCR testing, not replace it.

Abdulrahman et al. (Nov 13, 2020). Comparison of SARS-COV-2 Nasal Antigen Test to Nasopharyngeal RT-PCR in Mildly Symptomatic Patients. MedRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.10.20228973