Combined Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2: Rapid Antigen Detection as an Adjunct to Nucleic Acid Detection

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 is a serious threat to human life, and early diagnosis and screening can help control the COVID-19 pandemic. The high sensitivity of reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay is the gold standard for the diagnosis of COVID-19, but there are still some false-negative results. Rapid antigen detection (RAD) is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a screening method for COVID-19. This review analyzed the characteristics of RDT and found that although the overall sensitivity of RAD was not as high as that of RT-PCR, but RAD was more sensitive in COVID-19 patients within 5 days of the onset of symptoms and in COVID-19 patients with Ct ≤ 25. Therefore, RAD can be used as an adjunct to RT-PCR for screening patients with early COVID-19. Finally, this review provides a combined diagnostic protocol for RAD and nucleic acid testing with the aim of providing a feasible approach for COVID-19 screening.

Ammonium sulfate denatures transport medium less dependent on guanidinium isothiocyanate and enables SARS-CoV-2 RNA and antigen detection compatibility

“…RAD mainly targets the N-protein antigen locus of SARS-CoV-2, which is relatively quick, inexpensive, and laboratoryindependent, but the overall sensitivity of RAD is lower than RT-qPCR (Pavia and Plummer, 2021;Weitzel et al, 2021). Thus, RAD has been suggested as an adjunct to nucleic acid detection for COVID-19 diagnosis (Li et al, 2023). Large-scale nucleic acid testing involves large-scale specimen collection and transportation.…”

Rapid inactivation and sample preparation for SARS-CoV-2 PCR-based diagnostics using TNA-Cifer Reagent E

“…Rapid and reliable diagnostics represent a key intervention worldwide and also have informed inter alia public health measures, treatment options, and vaccination strategies. Although rapid antigen tests are currently available, they often have poor sensitivity compared to reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) (Li et al, 2023 ), especially for new variants of concern (Mohammadie et al, 2023 ) and during the early onset of infection (Jeewandara et al, 2022 ; Puhach et al, 2023 ). Failure to promptly diagnose COVID-19 during symptomatic infection would delay the initiation of treatment, such as nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid), thereby compromising its effectiveness for vulnerable individuals (Wang et al, 2023 ).…”