The new study conducted on test kits has shown that rapid antigen kits can give accurate results for children. This is an interesting study as many children now have to undergo such tests to attend school. Such tests are conducted whenever there is a requirement to get quick results. In this way, people can get test results quickly and use them for getting required clearance to attend work or travel.
Rapid Antigen Tests Highly Accurate For Children
The conventional testing method is not so beneficial when there are a large number of patients. The time taken to get clear results is close to 4 days in many regions, and this is a long waiting period, and most people do not have much time. Due to these constraints, the rapid antigen tests that give results quickly became very popular.
However, several experts were not confident about its accuracy. In many cases, it gave a false positive report on one instance and a negative result when the same person was tested after a few hours. This was seen in the early days of the pandemic. The test kits are now being used for children and adolescents, and elders across the country.
The recent study done on the accuracy of these tests has shown some interesting results. The rapid tests are beneficial for people who are not showing any symptoms. It is more sensitive than conventional tests, and the accuracy can go as high as 98% in detecting an infection. Even the negative predictive value, NPV, is as high as 99.7% in young people.
Apart from saving lots of time, the rapid antigen tests are also cost-effective, and this is a major advantage for those people who do not get reimbursement for the Covid tests. The rapid test kits are also easy to use and do not require too much expertise, unlike the conventional tests. In this way, such rapid antigen tests are widely incorporated in schools, airports, and other areas that need to screen a large number of people in a short duration of time.
Health experts are confident that the NPV value of close to 100% is a good thing for the rapid antigen test. In this way, it is easier to trust this test in the future. The procedure for conducting the test is similar as both PCR, and rapid antigen tests need to collect the nasal swab or saliva of the suspected patient. However, the method to detect the presence of a virus is different in these tests.
In PCR tests, a skilled technician is required to handle the process, and it takes a few hours to complete the process. Due to these constraints, it takes about a couple of days in most cases to get the test results. On the other hand, the rapid antigen tests are ready-made kits that can also be used by the common public at home. However, professionals still use these tests, and the authorities may introduce such tests for home use soon. In this method, the results can be seen in about 15 minutes.
As part of the study, the test results of close to 1000 children were analyzed, and it was evident that rapid antigen tests were very effective in this case. Considering the results, such tests can now be safely promoted in educational institutions for screening a large number of students within a short duration of time.
In this way, frequent testing becomes an easy task in the case of infected students. The infected children can be regularly tested daily till they test negative. This measure will help the schools and colleges to keep other children safe and improve attendance at educational institutions.
