Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Mar 5: Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today said new Covid-19 variants can be missed by the RT-PCR test.
Dr Nisar ul Hassan, President DAK in a statement said that a negative test does not exclude the possibility of infection with a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus.
“RT-PCR test is the most common diagnostic test used to identify people infected with Covid-19 infection; we could receive a false-negative test result if a mutant has infected a person,” DAK president said.
He said that the new variants can evade detection by the molecular test. “That means a person infected with a mutant may not be detected and consequently may not be isolated from the healthy population.
“Picking up variants is critical to devise appropriate and effective health policy to prevent and control their spread in the community,” Dr Nisar said.
He said that to detect Covid-19 variants, genomic sequencing which assesses the complete genetic structure of the virus is required.
“While RT-PCR test tells you if Covid-19 virus is in a person’s body, genetic sequencing would tell you about the specific strain of the virus that the person has been infected with; we send only positive samples for genetic testing to look for new variants,” he said.
He said that sequencing is also needed when the variant is suspected, but the RT-PCR test has produced a negative result. “Detecting and tracking variants is critical to prevent another wave of Covid-19,” he said.
“At just over one year into Covid-19 pandemic, the evolution of the virus has generated many viral variants that differ in their genetic sequence from the original strain,” he said.
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