Kenya rules out using rapid test kits for Covid-19

 


Kenya has ruled out employing rapid test kits in the detection of Covid-19.

The Health ministry has said the rapid tests can inform on the epidemiology of the virus but cannot serve to contain the virus.

The point is to know who is carrying the virus and who needs to be isolated, quarantined and treated to break the cycle of transmission.

The World Health Organization last week approved portable and easy to use rapid tests that will provide results in 15 to 30 minutes instead of hours or days.

Similar to the pregnancy test, the kits will display two blue lines in case the test turns out positive.

The ministry, however, said they will employ the kits in other areas like sero-prevalence studies local experts are carrying out to determine how many Kenyans have been exposed to the virus.

This means the ministry will continue to use the standard CPR tests despite low accessibility due to high global demand.“

This is a test that requires a level of sophistication in terms of equipment and instruments that are used to run the tests and also the time that it takes to run the tests,” Health CAS Rashid Aman said.

“In terms of the cost of the test, it is not a cheap test but it remains the more standard that will tell you have an active infection or not.”

WHO has approved tests by SD BioSensor, a South Korean company, with the second approval for the US-based company with offices in Kenya, Abbott, expected to be completed later.

Under the initiative, 120 million rapid tests will be supplied at a cost of Sh500 or less.

While the tests will not pick up all cases, they could allow many infectious people to be identified before they have symptoms and go into quarantine.

Aman said the rapid tests may detect antibodies in one’s blood and tell whether the person was at some point exposed to the virus, but cannot positively tell whether that person at the point of testing is actually carrying the virus and is able to transmit it.

“There is another rapid test which detects antigen or a protein from the virus. This test is much closer to the PCR test because it will only detect an antigen or a protein specific to the virus because the virus is present at that time of sampling,” Aman said.

"So, it is close in the sense that it will tell you that there is a virus whose protein has been detected but it still leaves bigger work to be done because it must be sensitive enough to pick up the real cases and to eliminate the negative cases."

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