COVID-19 Task Force Calls Rapid Antigen's Ability to Detect The Omicron Variant Reduced

JAKARTA - Spokesperson for the COVID-19 Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, said there was a possibility that the ability of the antigen rapid test to detect the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was reduced.

"The ability of the rapid antigen to detect Omicron variants still requires further research. The rapid antigen may still be able to detect COVID-19 infection, but its accuracy can be reduced," said Wiku in a virtual press conference, quoted on Wednesday, January 5.

Wiku revealed that this was known from the results of research by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency or the United States FDA.

Wiku said that the potential for the reduced ability of rapid antigens to detect the new variant of COVID-19 was because Omicron was a variant that had a high mutation rate in the S gene or spike.

"This has an impact on the detection ability of diagnostic test tools, especially those that use the S gene target to detect viruses," said Wiku.

Therefore, he continued, WHO had suggested from the start that the COVID-19 test kits used were based on NAAT (Nucleic Axis Amplification Test) such as RT-PCR which has more than one gene target.

"Given the ease with which the COVID-19 virus mutates and produces new variants, in the case of Omicron, which has many changes in the S gene, the use of a NAAT assay that only targets the S gene has the potential to fail to detect Omicron variants," he explained.

Then, to detect the Omicron variant, it must be continued with whole-genome sequencing (WGS) examination.