The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday urged states and Union Territories to mandatorily retest all symptomatic negative cases of rapid antigen tests through RT-PCR. It also asked the states/UTs to ensure that no positive cases are missed to curb the spread of infection.

The ministry claimed that "in some large states, symptomatic negative cases tested by Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) are not being followed up by RT-PCT testing."

As per the ICMR guidelines, all symptomatic (fever or cough or breathlessness) negative cases of Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) and all asymptomatic negative cases of RAT that develop symptoms within 2 to 3 days of being tested negative need to to be retested.

The Union ministry stated that such symptomatic negative cases could remain RT-PCT untested and spread the disease among their contacts.  

Notably, the ministry in its letter to the states and Union Territories stated that RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, while RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID-19 tests.

The latest development comes at a time when India's COVID-19 tally is all set to cross 45 lakh-mark. With the highest single day spike of 95,735 new cases and 1,172 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 tally stands at 44,65,864.