New Delhi: The Center on Wednesday said lateral flow tests, which include rapid-antigen and home-antigen tests, can detect COVID-19 from the third day to the eighth day of exposure to the virus, while the RT-PCR test for up to 20 days. Can diagnose infection. ,
In a press conference, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said that anyone who tests negative on the first day will test.
“It takes time for the virus to multiply in your system and this is known as the latent period. From the third day onwards it can be detected in a lateral flow test for another eight days which is the infectious period.
“That’s why the discharge policy and home isolation policy are focusing on a period of seven days,” Bhargava explained.
He said that the RT-PCR test results would remain positive even after the eighth day as some RNA particles which are non-infectious would continue to shed and the test results would remain positive.
Director General of ICMR said that omicronLateral flow tests have become the backbone.
Bhargava said that as per the government advisory, high-risk contacts of confirmed COVID cases, identified on the basis of age or comorbidities, inter-state travel need not be tested.
In addition, asymptomatic persons in community settings, patients who are discharged according to home-isolation guidelines and who are discharged from a COVID-19 facility under the revised discharge policy, are not required to be tested, he said. said.
Bhargava, however, insisted on seven-day home quarantine for all contacts of any positive case as per the guidelines and said that they should continue to wear masks.
Referring to the advisory on objective testing strategy for COVID-19 in India issued by ICMR recently, he said that symptomatic persons, whether they test negative on home test or rapid-antigen test, should be given RT-PCR test. should go for.
As per the advisory, the test can be done either through RT-PCR, TrueNat, CBNAAT, CRISPR, RT-LAMP, Rapid Molecular Testing System or rapid-antigen test.
A positive point-of-care test and molecular test should be considered confirmatory without repeat testing. The advisory states that persons with symptomatic, negative test/self-test or rapid-antigen test at home should undergo RT-PCR test.
In community settings, symptomatic individuals, at-risk contacts (elderly and persons with comorbidities) of laboratory-confirmed cases may be tested.
Also, persons traveling internationally can be tested.
In a hospital setting, testing may be performed at the discretion of the doctor, such that any emergency procedures should not be delayed for lack of testing and patients should not be referred to other facilities for lack of testing facilities, said the advisor.
All arrangements should be made to collect the samples and transfer them to the testing facilities, mapped to the health facility.
Bhargava said there are 3,128 testing laboratories and India’s daily RT-PCR testing capacity is over 20 lakh.
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