Rapid Diagnostic Tests Should Be Used To Screen Patients For Ebola

New York Times: Letter to the Editor: Testing for Ebola
Ranus S. Dhillon, internist and health systems/policy specialist in developing countries; Devabhaktuni Srikrishna, founder of Patient Knowhow; and Robert F. Garry, professor of microbiology and immunology at Tulane University and member of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium

“…Rapid tests should have been used to screen patients [during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa], with all who test positive sent for confirmatory testing by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), the conventional test for Ebola, to minimize the possibility of false positives. … [I]n one study, rapid tests did not miss a single patient with actual Ebola, and only about eight percent were false positives. Rapid tests would have been a game-changer during the peak of the epidemic and should now be used to screen patients” (2/9).

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