The first shipment of COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits has now arrived in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s national carrier, SriLankan Airlines, carried 200,000 COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Diagnostic Test Kits to Colombo from Seoul via Hong Kong to be used to combat Covid 19 in the country.
With the rise in positive cases on the island, Sri Lankan health authorities have opted to screen communities with these WHO-approved Antigen Rapid Test Kits, for faster results to break the chain of transmission of the virus.
National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) was given approval in October to order the new Rapid Antigen testing kits which were approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to identify COVID patients.
According to the NMRA the cost of these test kits are very low and test results can be obtained within 20 minutes.Test kits are expected to be used to test contacts of already identified COVID patients, to test people showing up at hospital OPDs with symptoms similar to COVID, and conduct random tests in the community.
