The ministry has also advised the states to establish a monitoring mechanism in all the districts to follow up such cases

With almost a lakh cases detected in the last 24 hours, the Union Ministry of Health Family Welfare and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have asked states to retest the samples tested with Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT).

The ministry in a statement said some states are not following the guidelines laid by ICMR to test all symptomatic negative cases tested by Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) again by RT-PCR testing. It showed concerns saying that some states are not adhering to the guidelines.

According to the guidelines, all the symptomatic patients showing symptoms like fever, cough, breathlessness etc should be tested again through RT- PCR in case the tests come negative. Similarly, retesting by RT-PCR has also been made necessary for asymptomatic negative cases of RAT that develop symptoms within 2 to 3 days of being tested negative.

The ministry said that it is necessary to curb the spread of coronavirus. “This is necessary to ensure that such symptomatic negative cases do not remain untested and do not spread the disease among their contacts. This will also ensure early detection and isolation/hospitalization of such false negatives.”

While the RAT is being used to make testing available as well as accessible, the importance of RT-PCR cannot be ignored as “RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID tests,” the statement said.

The ministry has also advised the states to establish a monitoring mechanism in all the districts to follow up such cases.

“These teams shall analyse details of RAT conducted on a daily basis in the Districts and State and ensure that there are no delays in retesting of all symptomatic negative cases. The aim of States/UTs should be to ensure that no potentially positive case is missed out,” the statement said.

The ministry has also advised the states to undertake an analysis on a regular basis to monitor the incidence of positives during the RT-PCR tests conducted as a follow up.

The ministry had made it mandatory for all the states to retest the already tested samples already tested through RAT again through RT-PCR after receiving complaints about false negatives.

The Union Health Ministry and ICMR had jointly written a letter to all the states and union territories asking them to test all symptomatic negative cases of RAT through the RT-PCR test.