Efficacy of Panbiotm Covid-19 Ag Rapid Test in Sars-Cov-2 Detection: Comparison With Rt-PCR Test

Abstract

Background: Evidence on performance of Rapid Antigen Detection Tests to recognize SARS-CoV-2 symptomatic patients in our context is limited. This study was aimed to evaluate Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device (Abbott Diagnostics, Jena, Germany) in identifying SARS-CoV-2 infection in comparison with RT-PCR test. Methods: This cross-sectional validation study was carried out at Margalla Hospital, Taxila from October, 2020 to March, 2021. Three hundred and eighty-two participants of both gender and all ages, symptomatic for 3–4 days were included in this study. For each participant, two nasopharyngeal swabs were collected by trained lab technicians according to SOPs, one for Rapid Antigen Test and other for RT-PCR.Covid-19 antibodies were checked 4-6 weeks after symptoms among 77 randomly selected participants to further evaluate the performance of Rapid Antigen Test. Data was analyzed using SPSS-26. Results: The mean age of the participants was 43.1 years (SD= 15.9). More than half of participants were males (n=213%=55.8) and 169 (44.2%) were females. Sensitivity of Rapid Antigen Test was calculated to be 94.3%, whereas the specificity was 39.7%. Out of 34 RT-PCR negatives that were initially detected positive on Rapid Antigen Test, 33 demonstrated presence of COVID-19 antibodies. Conclusion: Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test was found to have 93.4% overall sensitivity and relatively low overall specificity (37.9%). Rapid antigen testing using Panbio™ COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device can be effectively used to scale up mass testing to interrupt transmissibility of COVID-19 infection by generating quick result.

Rapid antigen test as a screening tool for SARS-CoV-2 infection: Head-to-head comparison with qRT-PCR in Ethiopia

“…Differently from our study, SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics accuracy tests conducted with Panbio (Ag-RDT) and qRT-PCR in Margalla Hospital, Pakistan showed higher sensitivity (94.3 %) and lower specificity (37.9 %) [ 18 ]. This may be explained by the fact that they only included participants with symptoms in the infection's early stages (3–4 days of onset of symptoms).…”

“…The manufacturer reported a specificity of the Panbio COVID-19 Ag of 99.8 % (95%CI 98.65%–100 %) and an overall sensitivity of 98.1 % (95%CI: 93.2%–99.8 %). It was also reported that sensitivity is 100 % (95%CI: 92.3%–100 %) within the first three days of symptom onset and 96.6 % (95%CI: 88.1%–99.6) 4–7 days after symptom onset [ 15 ] [ 14 , [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] , [25] , [26] ].…”

Comparative Performance of a Rapid SARSCoV-2 Antigen Test with RT-PCR for the Diagnosis of COVID-19

“…Most of the tests are characterized by high specificity while sensitivity seems to vary. On the contrary, the Panbio COVID-19 Ag RAT showed high sensitivity (94.3%) and very low specificity (39.7%) [11].…”

Evaluation of the performance of Abbott Panbio™ COVID-19 antigen rapid diagnostic test for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 at Harar, Eastern Ethiopia

“…This was similar to the studies reported in Ethiopia (74.2%) (13), Valencia, Spain (79.6%) (14), Madrid, Spain (73.3%) (15), Switzerland (81%) (16), Brazil (84%) (17), Geneva University Hospital (85.5%) (18), Marseille, France (75.5%) (19), Sint Maarten, Dutch Caribbean (84%) (20), and Vienna (73.33%) (6). But it was lower than the sensitivity reports at Margalla Hospital, Taxila (94.3%), and Spain (90.5%), which might be due to all study participants having short-duration symptoms (21). However, the current finding is lower than the 91.4% sensitivity of the test reported by the manufacturers (10).…”