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SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?

Antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 has become an increasingly prominent screening tool in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and can be performed multiple times a week. However, the optimal weekly frequency of antigen testing is unclear; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 1–3 times a w...

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Autores principales: Lau, Chin Shern, Aw, Tar-Choon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9139623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35626195
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12051039
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author Lau, Chin Shern
Aw, Tar-Choon
author_facet Lau, Chin Shern
Aw, Tar-Choon
author_sort Lau, Chin Shern
collection PubMed
description Antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 has become an increasingly prominent screening tool in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and can be performed multiple times a week. However, the optimal weekly frequency of antigen testing is unclear; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 1–3 times a week, while some experts support testing 2–3 times a week. In our own laboratory, all staff (n = 161) underwent twice- and thrice-weekly antigen tests during different periods from August 2021 to the present as part of routine COVID-19 surveillance of healthcare workers. No cases of COVID-19 were detected with either regimen. While more frequent SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing may allow antigen testing to be an important surrogate for RT-PCR testing, performing SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests twice or thrice a week shows no inferiority to each other in screening for COVID-19.
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spelling pubmed-91396232022-05-28 SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week? Lau, Chin Shern Aw, Tar-Choon Diagnostics (Basel) Communication Antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 has become an increasingly prominent screening tool in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and can be performed multiple times a week. However, the optimal weekly frequency of antigen testing is unclear; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 1–3 times a week, while some experts support testing 2–3 times a week. In our own laboratory, all staff (n = 161) underwent twice- and thrice-weekly antigen tests during different periods from August 2021 to the present as part of routine COVID-19 surveillance of healthcare workers. No cases of COVID-19 were detected with either regimen. While more frequent SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing may allow antigen testing to be an important surrogate for RT-PCR testing, performing SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests twice or thrice a week shows no inferiority to each other in screening for COVID-19. MDPI 2022-04-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9139623/ /pubmed/35626195 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12051039 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Lau, Chin Shern
Aw, Tar-Choon
SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?
title SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?
title_full SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?
title_fullStr SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?
title_full_unstemmed SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?
title_short SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Testing Intervals: Twice or Thrice a Week?
title_sort sars-cov-2 antigen testing intervals: twice or thrice a week?
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9139623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35626195
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12051039
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