Author(s)

Elvis Efe Isere^1*, Matthew Temitope Oluwole², Moses Adewale Adejugbagbe¹, Temitope Olajumoke Omoju^2,3, Oluwatosin Oni⁴, Ikeoluwapo Ajayi¹, Nosa Eniye Omorogbe⁵, Tolulope Aderonke Fagbemi⁶, Stephen Fagbemi²

¹Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
²Ondo State Ministry of Health, Akure, Nigeria.
³Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programme, Abuja, Nigeria.
⁴Ondo State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Akure, Nigeria.
⁵Medical Laboratory Science Council of Nigeria, Abuja, Nigeria.
⁶Department of Community Medicine, University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, Nigeria.

Objectives: Rapid and accurate identification of persons infected with SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19 is key to managing the pandemic. The urgent need to scale up access to COVID-19 testing in Nigeria has led to the government’s introduction of the use of COVID-19 Ag rapid diagnostic test (RDT) across various settings in the country. However, field performance evaluation of the rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection test is required to be conducted periodically and compared with the gold standard real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for diagnosis of COVID-19 cases. Design: A prospective COVID-19 screening and un-blinded verification of the performance of the STANDARD Q COVID-19 Ag test kit. Setting: The rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection test, Standard^TM Q COVID-19 Ag kit was compared with the RT-PCR test for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharyngeal samples for COVID-19 screening from persons and personnel attending a national youth camp orientation exercise during the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak (January to March 2021) in Ondo state, southwest Nigeria. Participants: Three hundred fifty-one persons and personnel were screened for COVID-19 infection. Results: Of 351 respondents screened, 68 (19.4%) were positive, and 264 (75.2%) were negative for both COVID-19 Ag RDT and RT-PCR assay. The rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection test’s sensitivity and specificity were 78.16% (95% CI = 68.02% - 86.31%) and 100.0% (95% CI = 98.61% - 100.0%), respectively and the diagnostic accuracy was 94.59% (95% CI: 92 - 97). Respondents that were symptomatic had a higher test sensitivity of 78.6% (49.2 - 95.3) compared to those without symptoms 78.1% (66.9 - 86.9) (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Our study shows evidence that Standard^TM Q COVID-19 Ag kit can be an appropriate rapid antigen test that could be used to screen for positive COVID-19 tests to guide decision-making for clinical management of persons infected with COVID-19, especially for closed settings and other clinical care settings.

SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 Rapid Antigen, RT-PCR, Sensitivity, Nigeria

Isere, E. , Oluwole, M. , Adejugbagbe, M. , Omoju, T. , Oni, O. , Ajayi, I. , Omorogbe, N. , Fagbemi, T. and Fagbemi, S. (2022) SARS-COV-2 Rapid Antigen Test in Comparison with RT-PCR for Laboratory Diagnosis of COVID-19 in a Southwest State of Nigeria. Open Journal of Epidemiology, 12, 387-400. doi: 10.4236/ojepi.2022.124032.