* Manual rapid antigen test kit to be used as precautionary measure for unvaccinated teachers on weekly basis
* New method aims to provide safe and healthy environment for both teachers and students: HMC official

 

Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has started doing manual rapid antigen Covid-19 tests for symptomatic cases, a senior official has said.

Dr Enas al-Kuwari, chair of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at HMC, told Qatar News Agency that the rapid testing kits used in some of HMC's facilities will be standardised in schools over the coming period to test teachers who are yet to receive their Covid-19 vaccine doses.

She added that the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at HMC has already begun co-operating with Primary Health Care Corporation to train the Health Hospital School's nurses on using the manual rapid antigen test kit as a precautionary measure for unvaccinated teachers on a weekly basis.

She stressed that adopting the new method for teachers aims to provide a safe and healthy environment for both teachers and students.

Dr al-Kuwari explained that the rapid test relies on taking a sample from the nose, with the test results being ready after 10 to 15 minutes. She said the test kit can reach 97% accuracy in detecting cases in the first week of infection.

She added that the test is used for cases that have shown infection symptoms such as fever or coughing, among others.

Dr al-Kuwari said in addition to accuracy and speed, another benefit of the rapid test is that it is much more convenient to take a sample from the nose in the rapid test as compared to the PCR test, which relies on the nasopharyngeal swab.

She added that the rapid tests are currently being used in the emergency units at Hamad General Hospital, Women's Hospital, Al Khor Hospital, Al Wakra Hospital and Paediatric Emergency Department. She said the aim of using the tests there was to facilitate the process of referring patients to the right clinics.

Further, Dr al-Kuwari said the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at HMC has provided a wide variety of Covid-19 tests since the onset of the pandemic. She noted that positive cases based on the rapid test will then undergo a PCR test, given the latter remains the gold standard for diagnosing Covid-19 infections.

 

701,943 Covid-19 vaccine doses given so far in Qatar: MoPH

A total of 701,943 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Qatar since the start of the programme, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has said.

Informing this through a statement, the MoPH on Friday also reported 602 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 during the past 24 hours, of whom 499 were from the community and 103 travellers returning from abroad.

The MoPH recorded 358 recoveries from the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recoveries in Qatar to 162,173.