‘People testing -ve but showing symptoms should be treated'

NEW DELHI: Test results may come out negative even if one has contracted COVID-19, experts have warned, advising that those showing symptoms of the disease must be treated without waiting for a confirmatory test to prevent aggravation of the infection.

There have been several cases where patients showing clinical symptoms of COVID19 have tested negative for the virus multiple times. They were confirmed positive after repeated tests, doctors said.

The general perception of the experts now is that a high degree of suspicion arising out of the clinical symptomatology and the CT scan reports should be the guiding factor for treatment rather than relying only on the RT-PCR test which has a sensitivity of only 70 per cent, Dr Neeraj Gupta, professor in the Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, said.

Even the rapid antigen test has a sensitivity of only 40 per cent. So many patients will be missed if we rely only upon these tests, Dr Gupta said.

The antibody tests has a sensitivity of 90 per cent but they are only useful for confirming past exposure for SARS-CoV2 and have no value in the early stages of the disease.