• Seiya Yamayoshi, Yuko Sakai-Tagawa, Michiko Koga, Osamu Akasaka, Ichiro Nakachi, Hidefumi Koh, Kenji Maeda, Eisuke Adachi, Makoto Saito, Hiroyuki Nagai, Kazuhiko Ikeuchi, Takayuki Ogura, Rie Baba, Kensuke Fujita, Takahiro Fukui, Fumimaro Ito, Shin-Ichiro Hattori, Kei Yamamoto, Takato Nakamoto, Yuri Furusawa, Atsuhiro Yasuhara, Michiko Ujie, Shinya Yamada, Mutsumi Ito, Hiroaki Mitsuya, Norio Omagari, Hiroshi Yotsuyanagi, Kiyoko Iwatsuki-Horimoto, Masaki Imai, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka.
• Division of Virology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 108-8639, Japan.
• Viruses Basel. 2020 Dec 10; 12 (12).

AbstractReverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR)-based tests are widely used to diagnose coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As a result that these tests cannot be done in local clinics where RT-qPCR testing capability is lacking, rapid antigen tests (RATs) for COVID-19 based on lateral flow immunoassays are used for rapid diagnosis. However, their sensitivity compared with each other and with RT-qPCR and infectious virus isolation has not been examined. Here, we compared the sensitivity among four RATs by using severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) isolates and several types of COVID-19 patient specimens and compared their sensitivity with that of RT-qPCR and infectious virus isolation. Although the RATs read the samples containing large amounts of virus as positive, even the most sensitive RAT read the samples containing small amounts of virus as negative. Moreover, all RATs tested failed to detect viral antigens in several specimens from which the virus was isolated. The current RATs will likely miss some COVID-19 patients who are shedding infectious SARS-CoV-2.

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