US health agency stops using RT-PCR test

Without media noticing it, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national public health agency of the United States, has stopped the use of the Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test to detect Covid-19.

The reason implied that the test could no longer distinguish Covid-19 and ordinary influenza (flu).

In a memo dated 21 July 2021 on its website cdc.gov from its Division of Laboratory Systems, addressed to “Individuals Performing COVID-19 Testing” and classified as “Lab Alert,” the CDC said:

“After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay (test) first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only.

“CDC encourages laboratories to consider adoption of a multiplexed method that can facilitate detection and differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses.”

In the Philippines, the RT-PCR  is the most expensive Covid test and which Health Secretary Francisco Duque III once dubbed “the gold standard” in detecting Covid-19.

https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dls/locs/2021/07-21-2021-lab-alert-Changes_CDC_RT-PCR_SARS-CoV-2_Testing_1.html