NEW DELHI, Sep 10: The union health ministry and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have directed all the states and the union territories to mandatorily re-test the symptomatic negative cases reported in Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).
An official spokesman of the central government said on Thursday that the states and the UTs had been directed that all the symptomatic (fever or cough or breathlessness) negative cases of RAT as well as all the asymptomatic negative cases of RAT that develop symptoms within 2 to 3 days of being tested negative must necessarily be retested through RT-PCR tests to ensure that no positive cases were missed to curb the spread of Corona infection.
The instructions were issued after the centre noted that in some large States, symptomatic negative cases tested by RAT were not being followed up by RT-PCT testing.
The spokesman pointed out that the guidelines of the ICMR as well as the Union Health Ministry clearly state that these two specific categories of persons must be re-tested. “This is necessary to ensure that such symptomatic negative cases do not remain untested and do not spread the disease among their contacts. This will also ensure early detection and isolation/hospitalization of such false negatives. It has also been reiterated in the joint letter that while the RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID tests.
The Union Health Ministry has also urged the States/UTs to urgently establish a monitoring mechanism in every district (a designated officer or a team) and at the State level to follow up such cases. These teams would analyse details of RAT conducted on a daily basis in the Districts and State and ensure that there were no delays in retesting of all symptomatic negative cases. The aim of States/UTs should be to ensure that no potentially positive case was missed out. They have also been advised to undertake an analysis on a regular basis to monitor the incidence of positives during the RT-PCR tests conducted as a follow up, the spokesman said.
(Manas Dasgupta)