Fadley Faisal
Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew bin Abdullah explained the protocols behind COVID-19 screening with antigen rapid test (ART) kits and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests during home quarantine at the daily press conference yesterday.
He was responding to queries whether positive patients need to do PCR tests after getting positive results from performing ART as a means to be sure of being infected.
“Relying on ART for confirmed positive patients and establishing the quarantine duration by doing the tests on days one, five and seven is enough to give confirmation that the patient can be released the latest by the 10th day,” Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew said.
“During the period, the virus is non-infectious whether the patient is a confirmed positive or not. Hence, the government allows them to be discharged after testing negative using ART on the seventh day,” he added.
The minister said a positive PCR result done after getting a negative ART result on the seventh day only means that the patient is carrying a non-infectious COVID-19 virus.
“This is why the health protocol only requires a 10- day maximum of quarantine and using ART results for the discharge of a patient,” Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew.
