{"doi":"10.1101/2022.01.27.22269299","title":"Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron, Delta, Alpha and Gamma variants using a rapid antigen test","abstract":"Abstract Throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants have emerged with different infection and disease dynamics. Testing strategies, including clinical diagnosis, surveillance, and screening, have been deployed to help limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Rapid antigen tests, in particular, have been approved for self-testing in many countries and governments are supporting their manufacturing and distribution. However, studies demonstrating the accuracy of rapid antigen tests in detecting SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially the new Omicron variant, are limited. We determined the analytical sensitivity of a CE-marked rapid antigen test against the Omicron, Delta, Alpha and Gamma variants. The rapid antigen test had the most sensitive limit of detection (10 plaque forming units [PFU]/mL) when tested with the Alpha and Gamma variants, followed by the Omicron (100 PFU/mL) and Delta (1,000 PFU/mL) variants. Given the increasing numbers of breakthrough infections and the need to surveil infectiousness, rapid antigen tests are effective public health tools to detect SARS-CoV-2 variants.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2022,"id":298541,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9619,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":987587,"name":"Nidhi Nandu","orcid":"0000-0001-8138-4461","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108357,"name":"Julie Boucau","orcid":"0000-0001-6731-7238","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":423703,"name":"Bobby Brooke Herrera","orcid":"0000-0002-2438-6716","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":934666,"name":"Nol Salcedo","orcid":"0000-0002-4232-3268","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":17,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:36.269611Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}