@the_news_21
Union Health Ministry has urged the States and Union Territories to mandatorily retest all symptomatic negative cases of Rapid Antigen Tests through RT-PCR.
The Ministry has noted that in some large States, symptomatic negative cases tested by Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) are not being followed up by RT-PCR testing.
The Health Ministry and Indian Council of Medical Research have jointly written to all the states in this regard.
The Ministry in a statement said, this is necessary to ensure that such symptomatic negative cases do not remain untested and do not spread the disease among their contacts.
It said, this will also ensure early detection and isolation and hospitalization of such false negatives.
In the letter, it has also been reiterated that while the RAT is being used to increase access and availability of testing in the field, RT-PCR remains the gold standard of COVID tests.
The Health Ministry also urged the states to urgently establish a monitoring mechanism in every district by a designated officer or a team and at the State level to follow up such cases.
These teams shall analyse details of RAT conducted on a daily basis in the Districts and State and ensure that there are no delays in retesting of all symptomatic negative cases.
The Ministry said, the aim of States and Union Territories should be to ensure that no potentially positive case is missed out.
They have also been advised to undertake an analysis on a regular basis to monitor the incidence of positives during the RT-PCR tests conducted as a follow up.
