Laboratory and field evaluation of the STANDARD Q and Panbio™ SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid test in Namibia using nasopharyngeal samples.

Laboratory and field evaluation of the STANDARD Q and Panbio™ SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid test in Namibia using nasopharyngeal samples.

<h4>Background</h4>As new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern emerge, there is a need to scale up testing to minimize transmission of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Many countries especially those in the developing world continue to struggle with scaling up reverse transcriptase pol...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Iyaloo Konstantinus, Douglas Chiwara, Emmy-Else Ndevaetela, Victoria Ndarukwa-Phiri, Nathalia Garus-Oas, Ndahafa Frans, Pentikainen Ndumbu, Andreas Shiningavamwe, Gerhard van Rooyen, Ferlin Schiceya, Lindile Hlahla, Pendapala Namundjebo, Ifeoma Ndozi-Okia, Francis Chikuse, Sirak Hailu Bantiewalu, Kapena Tjombonde
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2022-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269329&type=printable
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:<h4>Background</h4>As new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern emerge, there is a need to scale up testing to minimize transmission of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Many countries especially those in the developing world continue to struggle with scaling up reverse transcriptase polymerase reaction (RT-PCR) to detect SARS-CoV-2 due to scarcity of resources. Alternatives such as antigen rapid diagnostics tests (Ag-RDTs) may provide a solution to enable countries scale up testing.<h4>Methods</h4>In this study, we evaluated the Panbio™ and STANDARD Q Ag-RDTs in the laboratory using 80 COVID-19 RT-PCR confirmed and 80 negative nasopharyngeal swabs. The STANDARD Q was further evaluated in the field on 112 symptomatic and 61 asymptomatic participants.<h4>Results</h4>For the laboratory evaluation, both tests had a sensitivity above 80% (Panbio™ = 86% vs STANDARD Q = 88%). The specificity of the Panbio™ was 100%, while that of the STANDARD Q was 99%. When evaluated in the field, the STANDARD Q maintained a high specificity of 99%, however the sensitivity was reduced to 56%.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Using Ag-RDTs in low resource settings will be helpful in scaling-up SARS-CoV-2 testing, however, negative results should be confirmed by RT-PCR where possible to rule out COVID-19 infection.
ISSN:1932-6203

Similar Items