*DDC Doda launched Rapid Antigen Covid-19 testing in Doda* _Rapid antigen kits key in scaling up Covid-19 testing, shows test’s results in half and hour_ DDC
Publish Date : 18/08/2020
Doda, July 31:
With an aim to augment the Covid-19 testing at large scale in the district, the DDC Doda, Dr Sagar D Doifode today launched the rapid antigen Covid-19 testing here at Doda.
The rapid antigen testing has been introduced formally in the district at District Police Line Doda today, wherein 70 police personnels have been tested and all of them have been diagnosed negative in half and hour.
Speaking on the occasion,the DDC Informed that it will augment the testing in the district in a comprehensive manner, besides it will ensure speedy test results and will reduce the burden on the RT-PCR testing which usually delivered the results in more than two days and also consumes 5-6 hours in transportation of the samples collected to the different laboratories for testing.
Like RT-PCR, the rapid antigen detection test too seeks to detect the virus rather than the antibodies produced by the body, and in a reliable rapid antigen detection test, the maximum duration for interpreting a positive or negative test is 30 minutes, he added.
While elaborating about the Rapid antigen testing, the DDC said that it is a test on swabbed nasal samples that detects antigens,”foreign substances that induce an immune response in the body”. It is a point-of-care test, performed outside the conventional laboratory setting, and is used to quickly obtain a diagnostic result.
The kit, commercially called Standard Q COVID-19 Ag detection kit, comes with an inbuilt Covid antigen test device, viral extraction tube with viral lysis buffer and sterile swab for sample collection, besides Informed that ICMR also allowed the use of antigen detection kits for Covid-19 testing purpose.
The others who were present during the occasion are Dy SP DAR Shoket Beg, SHO Doda Munir Ahmed Khan, District Epidemiologist Umar Anayat khan,BMEO Ghat Mashhood Zargar, besides other officials of medical and police department.