RAT over RT-PCR... Boy! That’s some test!

P. Kumaran | NT

Bengaluru: In a grim reminder of what could happen in case of confusion created by different Covid tests, a nineyear- old boy despite having a negative RT-PCR test, was confined to the Covid-19 ward of Bowring hospital for two days.

His preliminary RAT(Rapid Antigen Test) at Bengaluru International Airport when he arrived from London with his mother and sister on December 15 morning, had been positive - which was said to be a clinical error - but without waiting for his RT-PCR test, he was moved to a Covid ward at Bowring Hospital.

But is this the way that travellers - particularly young children - should be treated by health officials? Should a RAT test be taken as the final result, when it would have been more prudent to have waited for the RT-PCR test before rushing the young boy to a ward where he risked exposure to other Covid positive patients?

A team of health officials, who are in charge of testing at the airport, rushed him to a newly set-up Covid-19 facility at the Bowring and Lady Curzon hospital.

Nearly four hours after he had already reached the Bowring hospital, his RTPCR sample, which was taken at the airport after he tested positive for RAT, showed that he was negative. The hospital authorities too had taken a swab sample, which also was negative.