With the holiday season, the demand for self-tests is high. Is this less invasive and faster Covid-19 screening test still effective against Omicron?
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[EN VIDÉO] Breath tests soon to diagnose Coronavirus in less than a minute A Singapore start-up has invented a device capable of detecting the coronavirus by blowing into a device a bit like a breathalyzer. A way to conduct rapid, inexpensive, and large-scale testing.
Available in pharmacies but also in supermarkets until January 31, 2022, antigenic self-test allows you to be screened quickly for Covid-19 before an event. Less invasive that the PCR test, it provides a result in 15 to 20 minutes. But can we trust him? It is less reliable than the test performed by a professional and a positive result obtained after a self-test must be confirmed by PCR. Especially with the traffic of the Omicron variant.
Self-tests less sensitive to Omicron
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted a review regarding the impact ofOmicron on the reliability of self-tests. The American body, with National Institutes of Health (NIH), studied the performance of self-tests to detect Omicron. The good news is that they are able to detect Omicron, but with less sensitivity than for the other variants. In other words, self-tests are more likely to provide a false negative (the test appears negative while the coronavirus is present) with Omicron than with Delta.
Despite a negative self-test, the appearance of symptoms typical of Covid-19 must alert and be the subject of another screening test, by PCR, to confirm the presence of the coronavirus or not.
Always useful tests
Self-tests are antigenic tests, that is, they detect the presence of a protein of SARS-CoV-2, the nucleocapsid, in the sample. For their part, PCR tests look for the genetic material of the coronavirus, its RNA. With screening techniques, the PCR test makes it possible to suspect the presence of the Omicron variant, which is impossible with a self-test alone.
The decrease in sensitivity of the self-tests does not call into question their use according to the FDA. They are still useful in detecting the coronavirus, especially in people who have viral loads important in the nose. Some pharmacists offer to supervise the self-tests to limit sampling errors or reading the result.
Here is a tutorial for using the Covid-19 Autotest. © Ministry of Solidarity and Health
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