991 antigen tests on Day 1 of special drive
GURUGRAM: The health department on Tuesday started its large-scale antigen testing drive in the district, with 991 tests conducted across various containment zones in Dundahera, Sukharali, Ram Nagar, New Colony in Sector 7, Shivaji Nagar, Hiranagar and Sadmata Mandir.
While 68 individuals tested positive for Covid-19 via antigen tests, 93 samples from symptomatic people are being retested using the RT-PCR method before a diagnosis can be made, health officials said.
The special drive will last till July 14, during which at least 8,000 antigen tests will be conducted in Gurugram.
The health department has deployed at least 20 lab technicians across 11 antigen test camps where people (from the area) can get themselves tested for free, said Dr Jai Prakash, Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme’s district surveillance officer (DSO) in Gururgam.
“We had introduced antigen tests a week ago when 50 tests were done in Sadar Bazar area and 100 in Gandhinagar. This week, we are scaling up the effort. We have hired more lab technicians for this exercise. Other than in hotspot areas, antigen testing camps are also being set up in Wazirabad, Chama, Khandsa and Rajiv Nagar,” Prakash said.
Approved by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), antigen tests detect a specific protein associated with the SarsCov-2 virus.
ICMR guidelines advise that negative samples, particularly those of patients showing symptoms, be retested via the RT-PCR method for a diagnosis. “Accordingly, 93 negative samples are being retested because the patients were showing Covid symptoms. We will get their results from the lab tomorrow,” said Dr Virender Yadav, chief medical officer, Gurugram.
Explaining the antigen testing methodology, Dr Prabhakaran Dorairaj, vice-president (research and policy) at the Public Health Foundation of India, said, “It is a confirmatory test which looks for presence of the virus itself, unlike rapid antibody tests which detect only antibodies produced by the immune system. So, the antigen test is a better diagnostic tool, but it can also produce more false negatives than the RT-PCR method. It is high on specificity, but low on sensitivity.”