Evaluation of the performance of Abbott Panbio™ COVID-19 antigen rapid diagnostic test for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 at Harar, Eastern Ethiopia.

Abstract

Rapid antigen tests can help in the effective isolation of symptomatic cases and the systematic tracing of close contacts. However, their reliability must be validated before implementing them widely. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 236 COVID-19-suspected patients visiting four different health institutions in Harari Regional State, Harar, Eastern Ethiopia, from June to July 2021. Two nasopharyngeal samples were collected and processed by the Panbio™ Ag-RDT kit and qRT-PCR. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 25.0. The Panbio tests had a sensitivity of 77.5% (95% CI: 61.6-89.2%) and a specificity of 98.5% (95% CI: 95.6-99.7%). It also had a positive predictive value of 91.2% (95% CI: 76.9-96.9%), a negative predictive value of 95.5% (95% CI: 92.3-97.4%), and a kappa of 0.81 (95% CI: 0.7-0.9). The test had a sensitivity of 94.4%, 100%, 100%, and 90% in the samples collected from patients within the 1-5 days post-onset of COVID-19 signs and symptoms, of age group ≤18 years old, with cycle threshold values of <20, and with household contact, respectively. This test can be used as point-of-care testing for the diagnosis of symptomatic patients with short clinical courses and contact with patients in households.