Background: Rapid antigen detection assays are promising tools for the diagnosis of COVID-19. We assess the performances of the Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test.
Methods: The Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid test was compared to a reference RT-PCR performed on the same nasopharyngeal swab (NPS). Overall, 81 NPS were tested retrospectively and 330 healthcare workers (HCWs) were tested prospectively.
Results: Retrospective analyze. Of the 48 SARS-CoV-2 positive NPS, 19 (39.6%) were found positive with the Panbio COVID-19. There was no cross-reactivity with SARS-CoV-2 negative NPS. The Kappa value was 0.459. Prospective analyze. The prevalence of COVID-19 was 26.1% in symptomatic HCWs. The overall sensitivity and specificity of the Panbio COVID-19 were 47.2% and 100.0% respectively. The sensitivity was 55.2% and 14.3% in those tested within and after 4 days of diseases respectively.
Conclusions: The Panbio COVID-19 Ag Rapid test displays low performance for the identification of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.