Nevada health officials order halt to antigen testing over inaccuracies
The Nevada Department of Health and Human Services has ordered nursing facilities to stop using antigen testing after some tests proved inaccurate.
A statement from the department issued Friday asked that antigen testers Quidel Sofia and BD Veritor stop being used because they aren’t accurate enough at declaring true negative test results.
“These antigen tests are accurate for detecting individuals with COVID-19, but less accurate for correctly detecting when someone does not have COVID-19,” the statement read.
The department said it received “anecdotal reports” last month from 12 nursing facilities that showed issues with the tests, including one that documented 60 percent of the positive antigen tests were false positives.
The department attributed the errors to a number of issues, including inadequate training by those administering the tests, lack of compliance with manufacturer instructions, or frequent testing within the same 48-hour period.
The department recommended reconfirming any positive test results provided by the antigen tests, as they may not be accurate.
As of Wednesday, Nevada had reported 83,347 cases of the coronavirus and 1,636 deaths.
Nevada nursing homes have been hit especially hard by the virus. Gov. Steve Sisolak deployed the Nevada National Guard in April to combat a surge in COVID-19 cases at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Nursing homes remain an environment where there is “a supply chain that is not yet fully stabilized,” Brett Salmon, president of the Nevada Health Care Association and Nevada Care for Assisted Living trade association, said in a statement in August.
To cut the costs of regularly testing nursing home employees, 65 Nevada hospitals and long-term care facilities were expected to use the antigen-testing devices, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data.
Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.
