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COVID-19: Safety of lateral flow tests questioned after they are found to miss half of cases


The lateral flow devices used in the community testing pilot in Liverpool only picked up half the COVID-19 cases detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and missed 3 out of 10 cases with higher viral loads, according to the government’s own policy paper.

Given the low sensitivity of the Innova lateral flow devices when used in the field, experts are questioning how they can be used to allow care home residents to have contact with relatives over Christmas safely or for students to know for certain that they are not infected before returning home.

The information can only be found by looking in annex B of the document, Community testing: a guide for local delivery, which was published on 30 November. This is the first publicly available information about the field evaluation of the Innova tests in Liverpool which has been criticised for its lack of transparency, accuracy of the tests used, and costs and potential harms.

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Source: BMJ, 4 December 2020

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