Rapid diagnostic test kits do not give reliable COVID-19 results, the Lagos Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, disclosed while announcing the government’s efforts to ramp up testing for coronavirus in the State.
The State government had earlier called on companies and manufacturers of rapid test kits for COVID-19 to apply for validation and submit a minimum of 300 units of the Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits including testing protocols for the kits.
Commenting on why the State conducted validation procedures on the rapid test kits, Prof. Abayomi said that the Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) Kits were considered to expand the State’s testing capacity, adding that Governor Sanwo-Olu paid for the validation in order to ensure quick validation and reduce barrier for manufacturers and suppliers of the kits.
“However, upon review of the several RDT kits that were submitted for validation, we can report that none of the RDT kits passed the validation exercise. RDT kits have a very high risk of giving false positive or negative results and in the event that a false positive result is given, a potentially negative person will be subjected to trauma, isolation and treatment like a positive patient,” Prof Abayomi said.
“In the event that a false negative is given, a potentially positive person is allowed to continue to roam freely in the community regardless of his positive status.”
There are two known types of rapid diagnostic test, one which detects the presence of viral antigens expressed by the COVID-19 virus in a sample from the respiratory tract of a person and the other which detects the presence of antibodies in the blood of people believed to have been infected with COVID-19.
The World Health Organisation had in April 2020, said that it neither recommended the use of antibody-detecting nor antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests for COVID-19.
As of June 30, Lagos has 10,310 confirmed cases and about 8,590 active cases. While 1,593 persons have been discharged, 127 people have died.
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