Coronavirus: Tests 'could be picking up dead virus'
The main test used to diagnose coronavirus is so sensitive it could be picking up fragments of dead virus from old infections, scientists say.Researchers say this could be leading to an over-estimate of the current scale of the pandemic.
Prof Carl Heneghan, one of the study's authors, said instead of giving a"yes/no" result based on whether any virus is detected, tests should have a cut-off point so that very small amounts of virus do not trigger a positive result. The University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine reviewed the evidence from 25 studies where virus specimens from positive tests were put in a petri dish to see whether they would grow.
This in turn appears to be linked to how likely the virus is to be infectious - tests that have to go through more cycles are less likely to reproduce when cultured in the lab.But when you take a coronavirus test, you get a"yes" or"no" answer. There is no indication of how much virus was in the sample, or how likely it is to be an active infection.
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