Evaluation of the Panbio Sars-Cov-2 Rapid Antigen Detection Test in the Bahamas

Abstract

Identification and isolation of persons infected with SARS-COV-2 are key mitigation strategies in the current pandemic, and rapid antigen detection tests (RADTs) offer the promise of decreased turnaround time to diagnosis when compared with gold standard RT-PCR testing. We evaluated the analytical performance of the Abbott Panbio RADT on nasopharyngeal samples stored at the Ministry of Health National Reference Lab in Nassau, Bahamas. The Panbio demonstrated a test sensitivity of 94% and a specificity of 100% on 50 PCR negative samples and 50 samples presumed to be infectious based on having PCR cycle threshold values below 30. Additionally, in our examination of operator results there was low interpersonal variation (1%) among three blind operators and significant correlation between sample Ct value and perceived signal strength on the RADT device. However, three PCR positive samples below Ct 30 were misdiagnosed by RADT, including one sample with Ct value less than 20. These results support the use of the Panbio in symptomatic persons to detect active SARS-COV-2 infections, with the caveat that RADT-negative samples should be confirmed by RT-PCR.

Accuracy of rapid point-of-care antigen-based diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression analyzing influencing factors

“…At the end of the data extraction process, 21 studies were still in preprint form [20,21,25,51,54,59,62,69,73,78,88,104,120,125,133,164,171,172,177,178,190]. All studies included were written in English, except for 3 in Spanish [57,66,138], 1 in Turkish [99], and 1 in French [157].…”

“…All studies included were written in English, except for 3 in Spanish [57,66,138], 1 in Turkish [99], and 1 in French [157]. Out of the 194 studies, 26 conducted a case-control study [25,36,38,70,71,76,85,88,[92][93][94]97,98,100,107,112,139,144,148,149,155,160,170,172,186,188], while the remaining 168 were cross-sectional or cohort studies. The reference method was RT-PCR in all except 1 study, which used viral culture [139].…”

Accuracy of rapid point-of-care antigen-based diagnostics for SARS-CoV-2: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis with meta regression analyzing influencing factors

“…At the end of the data extraction process, 21 studies were still in preprint form [16, 17, 21, 47, 50, 55, 58, 65, 69, 74, 84, 100, 116, 121, 129, 160, 167, 168, 173, 174, 186]. All studies were written in English, except for 3 in Spanish [53, 62, 134], 1 in Turkish [95], and 1 in French [153].…”

“…All studies were written in English, except for 3 in Spanish [53, 62, 134], 1 in Turkish [95], and 1 in French [153]. Out of the 196 studies, 26 conducted a case-control study [21, 32, 34, 66, 67, 72, 81, 84, 88-90, 93, 94, 96, 103, 108, 135, 140, 144, 145, 151, 156, 166, 168, 182, 184], while the remaining 168 were cross-sectional or cohort studies. The reference method was RT-PCR in all except 1 study, which used viral culture [135].…”

“…This quite likely results from the on average low viral load in 1 study [49], and the asymptomatic study population in the other [175]. On the contrary, compared to the other studies unusual high sensitivity was found in studies where average viral load was high [45, 84, 144, 145] or participants were mainly within the first week of symptom onset [42, 54, 135].…”