Evaluation of rapid antigen test for detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus

Background: The rapid diagnosis of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients is essential to reduce the disease spread. Rapid antigen detection (RAD) tests are available, however, there is scanty data on the performance of RAD tests. Objective: To evaluate the performance of the commercially available BIOCREDIT COVID-19 Ag test and compare it with RT-PCR for detecting Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. Analytical sensitivity for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus was determined for the RAD test using viral culture and RT-PCR as reference methods. The RAD test was further evaluated using respiratory samples collected from confirmed COVID-19 patients. The results were compared with RT-PCR test. Results: The detection limits between RAD test, viral culture and RT-PCR varied hugely. RAD was 103 fold less sensitive than viral culture while RAD was 105 fold less sensitive than RT-PCR. The RAD test detected between 11.1 % and 45.7 % of RT-PCR-positive samples from COVID-19 patients. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that the RAD test serves only as adjunct to RT-PCR test because of potential for false-negative results.