COVID rapid tests may not be keeping up with emerging variants, study finds

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COVID rapid tests may not be keeping up with emerging variants, study finds
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Rapid antigen tests may not be as effective at detecting COVID-19 variants: study

The main issue with rapid tests, scientists say, is they were developed with the original SARS-CoV-2 viral strain that emerged late in 2019. Since then, the virus has evolved numerous times and several viral variants of concern have emerged.

Using strains of live virus culture, the study's authors assessed how well four commercially availably rapid antigen tests were able to detect two COVID variants of concern -- the highly infectious Delta and Omicron variants. Researchers found that all four tests were sensitive to the Omicron variant, "if not more" so than to the original SARS-CoV-2 strain. However, three of the four tests showed less sensitivity to the Delta variant, with only the CareStart test showing "equal detection" of Omicron, Delta and the original virus.

"We expect that the observed loss in Delta sensitivity could have resulted in a 20 per cent or more loss of detection in potentially infectious individuals – nevertheless, the most infectious individuals still should have been detected," Kirby said in the release.

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