When Every Test Counts

Understanding the performance of a test is important when making your buying decision. Please find below some information that will help in determining the clinical performance of a test;

Detection - Every test has an LoD rating (Limit of Detection), which indicates the detection ability of the test. This is an important indicator in test performance to detect the presence of COVID-19 in smaller quantities. This is essential for early detection and enables an individual or group of workers, to become detected at lower viral loads and ideally before becoming infectious. Tests with higher LoD's will miss more infected patients. In short LoD matters.

Sensitivity- Every test has a sensitivity rating from 0-100%. A test that’s highly sensitive will flag almost everyone who has the disease and not generate many false-negative results. While a test kit having only 80% sensitivity could miss 1 in 5 infections. This is the most worrying outcome, so attention should always be paid to Sensitivity.

Specificity - A high specificity percentage test will correctly rule out almost everyone who doesn’t have the disease and won’t generate many false-positive results. While there can always be some false positives, it's always important to ensure these are kept to a minimum to ensure confidence in a testing regime.