Czech researchers develop faster method for comparing sensitivity of antigen tests

Researchers from the Czech Academy of Sciences have developed a faster method for comparing the sensitivity of different types of antigen tests. The tests available to date are lengthy and require a large number of samples from infected patients. The new method created by a team of researchers led by Jan Konvalinka works with an artificially created nucleoprotein of the virus and makes it possible to determine the so-called detection limit - the smallest amount of virus that a given test can detect. The researchers tested the method on 13 types of tests, most of which were approved by the Ministry of Health for self-testing in Czech companies. The results of the study revealed up to 100-fold differences between the most accurate test (Flowflex) and the least accurate (Safecare).