The dark side of SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen testing: screening asymptomatic patients

G Caruana; L-L Lebrun; O Aebischer; O Opota; L Urbano; M de Rham; O Marchetti; G Greub

doi:10.1016/j.nmni.2021.100899

The dark side of SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen testing: screening asymptomatic patients

New Microbes New Infect. 2021 Jul:42:100899. doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2021.100899. Epub 2021 May 14.

Authors

G Caruana¹, L-L Lebrun², O Aebischer², O Opota¹, L Urbano², M de Rham³, O Marchetti², G Greub^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Microbiology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
² Patients Safety Program, Ensemble Hospitalier de la Côte (EHC), Morges, Switzerland.
³ CoVID-19 Task Force Direction, Ensemble Hospitalier de la Côte (EHC), Morges, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Infectious Diseases Division, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Abstract

Several reports showed SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen tests (RATs) performances among COVID-19 symptomatic subjects in outpatient settings during periods of highest incidence of infections and high rates of hospital admissions, but few data are present for asymptomatic patients. We investigated the role of RATs in an emergency department, as a novel screening tool before admission for COVID-19 asymptomatic patients. A total of 116 patients were screened on admission in a 250-bed community hospital in Morges, Switzerland. RAT detected 2/7 RT-PCR-positive patients and delivered two false-positive results. These data suggest the non-fiability of RATs screening in this clinical scenario.

Keywords: COVID-19 diagnostic testing; SARS-CoV-2; emergency ward; health plan implementation; rapid antigen test.