The Philippines’ coronavirus task force has adopted a recommendation by the Department of Transportation to use antigen tests to screen travelers on domestic flights.

The Inter-Agency Task Force’s Resolution No. 70 said this new procedure would be “provisionally adopted” until the final protocols to released by the Department of Health (DOH).

“The Antigen Screening Protocol for Domestic Air Travel as recommended by the Department of Transportation is provisionally adopted subject to the approval of the use of antigen for travel purposes and subject to the alignment with the final DOH protocols,” the resolution read.

What are antigen tests?

Antigen tests are another way of determining the current or active infections among patients.

Like reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests, antigen tests use swab samples collected to test for COVID-19. 

The main advantage of antigen tests are its faster turnaround time and cheaper cost. Unlike RT-PCR tests that can take up to 3 days to process, results from antigen tests only take about an hour to be released. 

RT-PCR tests though are considered the gold standard in determining the presence of coronavirus.

Up for validation

On Friday, September 11, the DOH said there were 8 antigen kits registered with the Food and Drug Administration, two of which were currently being validated by the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine. 

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said official results of the validation tests have yet to be released but that these must show at least 80% sensitivity to detecting the virus with 95% specificity. 

While antigen tests were being considered, Vergeire said these could not be used indiscriminately, and should only be used for targeted testing.

Vergeire said the department planned to release updated guidelines on testing, along with different types and methods, by the week of September 14. The guidelines are expected to include algorithms for handling different types of groups to be tested like overseas Filipinos and locally stranded Filipinos, among others. – Rappler.com