NEW DELHI: Soon after procuring rapid antibody test kits, the Delhi government on Sunday began testing people for coronavirus in various containment zones spread across the city, officials said. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday said the AAP government has acquired 42,000 such kits.
The rapid antibody tests were initiated in Delhi on Sunday for containment zones across the national capital, the officials said.Two kinds of diagnostic tests are being prescribed for use in India — the RT-PCR test and rapid antibody test — as per global health norms.
A reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test is a laboratory technique combining reverse transcription of RNA into DNA that detects the virus while the antibody tests, which use blood, detect the body’s response to the virus. In rapid antibody test, the result will be positive only if the antibodies have been generated. So, even if a person is infected but the antibodies are not generated, the result will come negative.
RT-PCR test takes time and is a costly affair, because of its elaborate kit. On the other hand, rapid antibody test is less expensive and the result can come in 20-30 minutes, experts said.Rapid antibody tests are generally used in hotspots where the infection is found concentrated in a given area.
Civic authorities have carried out mass sanitisation and disinfection drive in hotspots in the past several days using drones and other measures.Door-to-Door surveillance activities are being carried out in cluster containment zones, and a total of 1,047 samples have been collected from different clusters, officials said.