Increase use of rapid antigen tests, encourage testing at home: Centre to states

The union health secretary has urged all states to increase rapid antigen tests (RAT) since RT-PCR testing leads to delays in confirming diagnosis due to its turnaround time of about 5-8 hours.

The union health secretary has written to states and UTs to increase rapid antigen tests (RAT) as Covid cases across the country go north.

In its letter, the government emphasised that in the current upsurge, "if any individual presenting with fever with/without cough, headache, sore throat, breathlessness, bodyache, recent loss of taste or smell, fatigue and diarrhea should be considered as suspect case of Covid-19 unless proven otherwise by confirmation of another etiology".