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

ABSTRACT:

Background

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.

Methods

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.

Results

For the laboratory evalu

SUBMITTER: Konstantinus I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9514621 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature