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HEALTH MINISTER STEPHEN Donnelly has said an independent expert group has been set up to assess if antigen testing can be used in schools, workplaces and even the Dáil.
Speaking in the Convention Centre in Dublin, Donnelly said he is looking forward to getting the view of the experts as to whether antigen testing can be used in settings other than healthcare.
The health minister said from this week, significant volumes of antigen tests are being deployed across healthcare settings.
Last week, the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) said they were looking at using antigen testing more widely for symptomatic cases.
NPHET has endorsed the use of antigen tests as a supplement to PCR testing in certain situations, and particularly when the availability of PCR tests may be limited.
The European Commission has recently signed a contract for the supply of rapid antigen tests for up to 20 million antigen tests for donation to the Member States.
Antigen tests from the EU
The HSE confirmed to TheJournal.ie that Ireland will receive its first allocation of these antigen test in the first quarter of 2021, with the details around the shipment and order lead times being worked on this week.
“Proposal for their use in symptomatic patients within defined contexts has been made and decisions regarding deployment are being finalised with NPHET.
“We have already used antigen tests in hospitals, food sector and outbreak settings as part of the validation project.
“To date we have run in the region of 4,000 antigen tests. We expect to release more of the tests to the acute hospital system over the coming weeks. These will be used as a tool alongside our extensive PCR rapid and batch testing systems in hospitals,” said the HSE.
While a HIQA report found that antigen tests to date show reduced diagnostic accuracy as compared with the PCR test, the WHO suggests that these rapid tests should only be used when PCR testing is unavailable, or where prolonged turnaround times preclude clinical utility.
The HSE said their intended use is in symptomatic patients in the early stages of infection, where samples are taken and tests conducted by trained by health professionals.
“There is limited performance data currently available for the use of antigen tests in asymptomatic populations. The ECDC and WHO recommend that any country considering implementing antigen testing should conduct appropriate clinical validation of the tests for use in that setting.
“As a result the HSE established a working group who are verifying and validating a range of tests available in the marketplace, together with the options and impacts arising from the deployment of those tests,” said the HSE.
‘Bite the bullet’
Professor Luke O’Neill told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny that now is the time for the Irish Government to “bite the bullet” and introduce widespread antigen testing.
As society reopens, he said antigen tests will be a useful weapon, adding that the evidence for antigen testing is getting stronger and stronger.
WHO’s Special Envoy on Covid-19 David Nabarro said the tests can benefit the economy, the health service and mass gatherings.
On the matter of the AztraZeneca, Donnelly told the Dáil that there’s no certainty how many AstraZeneca doses will arrive here after mid-March.
“Last night the company was still not in a position to provide clarity on deliveries after mid-March,” he said.
The target of getting 700,000 people vaccinated by March was called into question today when the minister said Ireland was largely relying on AstraZeneca delivering 600,000 doses – which the company is not committing to at the moment.
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There are several studies on the veracity of antgen testing, conducted in the U.K. and a number of countries in the EU. The last study was published in the UK last week. Essentially the antigen test is “too inaccurate “ to be useful, “mass testing is not a panacea and will not, on its own, make schools safe”
However let’s not learn from the experience of others and outsource an “independent review “ to my consultancy friends for an exercise in cut & paste.
@Jules: China finally admitted PCR gives an unusually large amounts of false-positives too.
@Contrary Mary: CHINA or WHO
my mistake..same thing
@SquintEastwood: not correct. One is a country and the other a health organisation.
@Jules: Waste water testing is quicker, cheaper and more accurate.
What about all the journal and other social media posters? They already know that antigen tests are better, should they be consulted on all this?
@Paul Furey: Were you not copied on the email Paul? We sent in our feedback this morning.
@Paul Furey: There’s an issue with the antigen tests in that they can produce a higher amount of false negative results. False positives are a huge inconvenience to those unlucky enough to get one with having to isolate, etc. But a false negative is downright dangerous as people get over confident and let their guard down if they are officially told they don’t have the virus. Antigen tests became the darling of the anti-lockdown/anti-mask mob when they realised that using them would artificially bring down case numbers. At the same time they started demonising the PCR test, saying it was responsible for huge numbers of false positives.
@Tommy Roche: I think comparing the PCR and antigen tests is like comparing chalk and cheese, or diesel and petrol engines, the only thing they have in common is taking a swab. I agree that false negatives is a real danger if the antigen test is used in isolation.
From my reading there are various different antigen tests with variable accuracy. Remember the Elon Musk experiment where he is supposed to have taken 4 antigen tests and got two positive and two negative? Did he ever release the PCR test results? I read now that maybe he had “mild covid” – despite two negative antigen tests. One idea floated around was “the best of three” so that three tests would be done and a conclusion drawn based on the outcome of three rather than one test.
The UK planned to use antigen tests as a screening process for workers but “scientists found that in a population of mostly people with symptoms the test’s sensitivity fell to about 58% when administered by self-trained staff, versus 73% when tested by skilled research nurses and 79% when tested by laboratory scientists. In a study that looked at people without symptoms, the sensitivity fell to roughly 49% versus PCR tests.”
I do believe that some antigen tests are better than others and certainly antigen tests are better than nothing. They seem to be good at catching a current heavy viral load and could be useful as a screening before allowing boarding of aircraft or before allowing workers into a close environment
I post the link below as it is interesting. The real facts as presented by independent bodies leave no doubt that PCR tests are much better than antigen tests – but some people just want to look up fringe articles and quote from them instead.
One thing I always consider, when evaluating claims that debunk the official line, is that some world leader somewhere would use this to their advantage. There is little doubt that covronavirus in the USA helped in the defeat of Trump and I am sure that if any of the fringe proposals or solutions worked he would have used those to assist in re-election. Only Turkmenistan is covid-19 free as the government banned the use of the term.
I digress but I antigen tests is not a solution to much but can be useful in some specific situations situations once it’s limitations are known.
China plans to switch to anal swab coronavirus testing, says It’s more accurate.
https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/27/china-coronavirus-testing-anal-swab-more-accurate-throat-swab/?fbclid=IwAR30r4Qx5I6QmGiuJzzO2udSa6ROWvl-KNcjRPILJsSBEU582r7J7SOVDtE
@artur filip: can’t imagine driving up to one of those drive through testing centres and sticking my @rse out the window!
@Kevin Hill: cough
@Kevin Hill: thanks for this Kevin, was feeling really low today and this comment made me cry laughing. I needed it.
@Kevin Hill: thats called dogging kevin…
@Finn Bar Regany: call in the vets
@GB: keep the head up GB, it will get better.
@artur filip: Any takers?
@artur filip: actually that is wrong info. It’s not SWITCH, it is ADD anal swab
Entire test including: temperatures, nose swab, mouth swab and anal swab, put all together is more accurate
They do whatever it’s takes to control the virus
They wont be sticking anything up my @rse. The nose is bad enough.
Testing the waste water from the schools for covid19 will tell you a week before antigen or PCR tests if there is a major covid outbreak.
have your say