15,000 kits to start rapid antigen tests in Noida

NOIDA: The district administration is set to change its Covid testing strategy from Wednesday and will examine 15,000 samples using rapid antigen test kits over the next few days.
The state government has sent 15,000 antigen test kits to Gautam Budh Nagar and officials said that they have been given to six high-priority districts.
Additional chief secretary of the state Awanish Awasthi said: “Noida, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Kanpur (urban) are districts that need special attention and have been given the rapid antigen test kits for early detection of cases.” He added that all six districts under Meerut division are highly sensitive.
GB Nagar district officials said an ICMR team will be training officials from the six districts on Wednesday about using the kits.
The guidelines have also been shared by the ICMR.
From Noida and Ghaziabad, 10 laboratory technicians each, along with one pathologist, will be trained by ICMR on Wednesday.
“It would be a major change in testing strategy for us and we will try to conduct maximum tests as soon as possible ,” said Suhas LY, the district magistrate.
According to the ICMR guidelines, the standard Q COVID-19 Ag detection kit shows true positive results.
It means, if a person tests positive, it is considered a confirmed positive. But those those test negative should definitely tested again using RT-PCR in order to be certain.
ICMR guidelines say that the rapid antigen test kit has a high specificity of 99.3 to 100% as per independent evaluation by the ICMR and AIIMS.
According to ICMR, people who can be examined using the test kit include those with ILI symptoms, asymptomatic, direct and high-risk contacts with comorbidities, asymptomatic people undergoing aerosol generating surgical/non-surgical interventions and asymptomatic high risk groups visiting healthcare facilities.
The antigen test needs to be conducted at the site of sample collection. Transportation is not recommended.
The results of the tests are obtained between 15 and 30 minutes of testing.