New guidelines: This is how you will perform an antigen test for a reliable result
Are the test guidelines confusing to you?
The Ministry of Health is issuing new guidelines for performing an antigen test, and this time instead of a nose, you should push the stick down your throat.
Walla!
health
10/01/2022
Monday, 10 January 2022, 11:45 Updated: 12:06
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In the video: Bennett: We will provide free tests for students, test prices will drop soon (GPO)
The Ministry of Health today publishes new and updated guidelines for the public regarding the performance of home antigen tests, which include an important change in the way the sample is collected.
The new guidelines recommend sampling the throat as well, and not just the nose as has been the practice so far.
The Ministry of Health's policy of dealing with the corona virus has been reshaped following the spread of the omicron virus, and guidelines currently dictate most people perform home or institutional antigen tests following exposure to a verified patient or shortening of isolation.
This is in contrast to the PCR tests that have been used until now, and from now on will only be limited to certain cases.
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To the full article
Antigen testing has a number of notable advantages: they are cheaper, faster, more accessible and do not require cumbersome and expensive laboratory resources, withstanding long and winding queues and not even skilled staff. Anyone can do it for themselves and their children at home. But as reliance on them grows, so do their shortcomings. Antigen tests are less sensitive to virus detection, and probably have even more difficulty identifying the currently common omicron variant. Plus, not everyone does it the right way.
Most of the rapid antigen tests available today are approved only for collecting a nasal sample, but infectious disease specialists were not surprised to hear that people who were found negative after a nasal sample were found positive after the PCR test which also includes a throat sample.
Although the manufacturers of the quick test kits recommend using the tests only as directed (in other words, moving the pen only through the nose), growing evidence has suggested that it may be worthwhile to move the pen down your throat as well.
Especially in light of the fact that the omicron variant seems to be more established in the throat area and less in the nose (this is also the reason it causes sore throat).
Experts we spoke to about this issue last week agreed that collecting a sample using the stick from the throat as well may help the antigen tests detect more cases of infection.
Indeed, today the Ministry of Health publishes new guidelines for performing home antigen tests, and instructs to collect a sample first from the throat and then one nostril using the same stick.
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Another refinement that the Ministry of Health wants to convey to the public in the new guidelines is to perform the test 3 days after exposure to verified, because there is concern that because of these tests people are tested too close to the time of exposure, before the virus had enough time to incubate and produce a viral load.
When tested too early, the test will come out negative, although it is possible that the same person will become positive a day or two later.
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Corona
Corona virus
Antigen test
covid-19
Ministry of Health