Quick Covid tests gain ground as demand grows
KOCHI: As Covid negative certificates are mandatory for those travelling within and outside the country, people are opting for tests that give quick results. According to the doctors, those with urgent travel requirements and those requiring Covid negative certificates prefer rapid PCR tests that give results within 45 minutes to one hour. Quick PCR tests like GeneXpert, TrueNAT and Abbot provide the results within an hour and are preferred over the standard RT-PCR test.
Doctors said that these tests have the same sensitivity as that of the standard RT-PCR test. “The only disadvantage is that these tests are costlier. The standard RT-PCR test takes around six hours and the result is made available to the person only the following day,” said Monu Varghese, a pulmonologist based here. Since most of the RT-PCR tests are conducted through pooling, there are chances of false positives and sample contamination, Monu said. GeneXpert and Abbot tests cost Rs 2,500.
The reduced cost of the Covid test has come as a relief for people opting to take the test on their own. RT-PCR test now costs `1,700, TruNAT `1,500, and Rapid antigen test `300. Earlier, RT-PCR used to cost `2,750. The availability of many ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research)-approved kits at competitive rates has brought down the cost of testing.
Meanwhile, laboratories are actively engaged in collecting blood samples from homes of those quarantined and undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at home. “Usually we conduct only RT-PCR tests by collecting the samples and test them in batches. But considering the requirement and urgency, we also conduct other approved Covid tests for a fixed rate. We test over 300-400 samples daily,” said a staffer of a DDRC lab.