Pune: Majority Of COVID-19 Tests To Be Done By RT-PCR Now
Mehab Qureshi
Pune, September 18, 2020: Following the directives issued by the central government, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has reduced the number of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) antigen tests and decided to do more RT-PCR tests, informed PMC Additional Commissioner Rubal Agarwal.
The civic body had started COVID Care Centers at 23 locations, where antigen tests have been used in the last three months to detect COVID-19 patients, as recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). However, in the last two days, the civic body has reduced antigen tests as they are not as trustworthy as RT-PCR tests, experts believe.
“According to the Centre’s instructions, the ratio of RT-PCR and antigen test should be less than 1: 1. Therefore, we have decided to conduct fewer antigen tests in comparison to RT-PCR tests. For the past two to three days, an average of 7,000 tests have been performed daily. Of these, 5,000 are being tested by RT-PCR, while 2,000 are being tested by antigen kits”, said Agarwal.
