NEW DELHI: Overdependence on Rapid Antigen Test is a key factor for rise in critical illnesses due to
Covid-19. Physicians say many people get tested using the RAT kits that give results quickly but have lower accuracy rate.
"A 38-year-old patient was wheeled into the emergency of our hospital two days ago with severe symptoms of Covid. He was having fever, cough and breathing difficulty for a week and got RAT done. It came negative so the patient stayed at home despite worsening symptoms thinking it could be the seasonal flu," Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant, internal medicine at Apollo hospital, said. "If someone has a disease symptom, he or she should be tested using RT-PCR, which is more accurate," Dr Chatterjee added.
In the last seven days, Delhi has conducted more than 3.4 lakh Covid tests. Of this, 34% was done using RT-PCR while the rest using RAT kits.
Union home minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting on the Covid-19 crisis on Sunday in which, among others, a decision was taken to double the state's testing capacity.
"We started with around 30-40 RT-PCR tests daily. Now, we are processing close to 300 samples in a day," the managing director of a South-Delhi based laboratory said.
"Further augmentation in the RT-PCR testing capacity may require increased manpower, infrastructure and space, which isn't easy," he added.
According to Dr SK Sarin, director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, which is conducting over 500 RT-PCR tests daily, pooled testing is one of the ways to boost capacity. It involves mixing several samples together in a 'batch' or pooled sample, then testing the pooled sample. "If a batch is negative, it means all samples are negative. If a batch is positive, we have to separately test all samples," he added.
The US FDA suggests pooled testing when there is a low prevalence of cases. In Delhi, positivity rate is around 15% at present. "There is a major variation in the positivity rate of different labs. This could be due to quality control," said another senior doctor.
Dr Rommel Tickoo, associate director of internal medicine at Max Saket, said that he has come across many patients who rely more on advisories circulating on social media rather than
doctors themselves. "A patient refused to take steroids as prescribed because he had read somewhere that the medication could have certain side-effects. It leads to exacerbation of symptoms," Dr Tickoo added.