Combining rapid antigen testing and syndromic surveillance improves community-based COVID-19 detection in a low-income country (original) (raw)

Chadwick, F. J. et al. (2022) Combining rapid antigen testing and syndromic surveillance improves community-based COVID-19 detection in a low-income country.Nature Communications, 13, 2877. (doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30640-w) (PMID:35618714) (PMCID:PMC9135686)

Abstract

Diagnostics for COVID-19 detection are limited in many settings. Syndromic surveillance is often the only means to identify cases but lacks specificity. Rapid antigen testing is inexpensive and easy-to-deploy but can lack sensitivity. We examine how combining these approaches can improve surveillance for guiding interventions in low-income communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Rapid-antigen-testing with PCR validation was performed on 1172 symptomatically-identified individuals in their homes. Statistical models were fitted to predict PCR-status using rapid-antigen-test results, syndromic data, and their combination. Under contrasting epidemiological scenarios, the models’ predictive and classification performance was evaluated. Models combining rapid-antigen-testing and syndromic data yielded equal-to-better performance to rapid-antigen-test-only models across all scenarios with their best performance in the epidemic growth scenario. These results show that drawing on complementary strengths across rapid diagnostics, improves COVID-19 detection, and reduces false-positive and -negative diagnoses to match local requirements; improvements achievable without additional expense, or changes for patients or practitioners.

Item Type: Articles
Additional Information: This work is supported by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to FAO (INV-022851). FJC is funded by EPSRC (EP/R513222/1), DJP by the JUNIPER consortium (MR/V038613/1), and KH by Wellcome (207569/Z/17/Z).
Status: Published
Refereed: Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Illian, Professor Janine and Chowdhury, Ms Tasnuva and Wilkie, Dr Craig and Clark, Dr Jessica and Chadwick, Fergus and Kundegorski, Mr Mikolaj and Swallow, Dr Ben and Pascall, Dr David and Hill, Dr Davina and Husmeier, Professor Dirk and Hampson, Professor Katie and Matthiopoulos, Professor Jason and Mair, Professor Frances and Haddou, Mr Yacob
Authors: Chadwick, F. J., Clark, J., Chowdhury, S., Chowdhury, T., Pascall, D. J., Haddou, Y., Andrecka, J., Kundegorski, M., Wilkie, C., Brum, E., Shirin, T., Alamgir, A.S.M., Rahman, M., Alam, A. N., Khan, F., Swallow, B., Mair, F. S., Illian, J., Trottter, C. L., Hill, D. L., Husmeier, D., Matthiopoulos, J., Hampson, K., and Sania, A.
College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary MedicineCollege of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Health & Wellbeing > General Practice and Primary CareCollege of Science and Engineering > School of Mathematics and Statistics > Statistics
Journal Name: Nature Communications
Publisher: Nature Research
ISSN: 2041-1723
ISSN (Online): 2041-1723
Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 The Authors
First Published: First published in Nature Communications 13: 2877
Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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Funder and Project Information

DTP 2018-19 University of Glasgow

Mary Beth Kneafsey

EP/R513222/1

MVLS - Graduate School

The Science of Rabies Elimination

Katie Hampson

207569/Z/17/Z

Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine

Deposit and Record Details

ID Code: 270780
Depositing User: Dr Mary Donaldson
Datestamp: 27 May 2022 09:10
Last Modified: 07 Apr 2025 01:35
Date of acceptance: 10 May 2022
Date of first online publication: 26 May 2022
Date Deposited: 11 May 2022
Data Availability Statement: Yes