BMC orders 50,000 more rapid antigen test kits

MUMBAI: The BMC placed orders for another 50,000 antigen kits to boost the city's testing numbers. This will be the second round of antigen purchases, after the civic body brought the first lot of one-lakh kits in July. Mumbai has carried out over 6.5 lakh tests, of which rapid antigen tests account for over 50,000 tests.
Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani confirmed that more antigen kits will be pressed into testing. "We want to test more in containment areas and quarantine facilities. We may purchase more kits in a phased manner looking at the demand from wards," he said. Civic chief I S Chahal had told TOI earlier that wards would be given testing targets, so that more cases are detected early. The civic body is also looking at renewed testing strategies since the infection has now mainly moved from slum pockets to high-rises.
Experts cautioned that the city, like several other regions in the state, should not rely heavily on antigen testing. "It has a higher false negativity rate than RT-PCR, which is the gold standard of testing. The city should try and carry out more RT-PCR tests," a senior doctor said, adding that the share of antigen tests in daily testing is constantly increasing. Pune and Aurangabad are among districts that carried out the highest number of antigen tests in the state. A worrying part has been the few antigen negatives sent for confirmatory testing with RT-PCR.