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 The recommendation goes against the advice of the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, which has said manufacturers' instructions should
still be followed and that incorrect use of throat swabs could pose
a safety risk.
On Israeli Army Radio, Sharon Alroy-Preis, Israel's public health
chief, said antigen tests, used widely in the country, are less
sensitive than PCR tests in detecting illness.
"In order to increase their sensitivity we will from now on
recommend swabbing the throat and the nose. It's not what the
manufacturer instructs but we are instructing this," she said.
The ministry later issued guidelines which said a swab should be
taken from the throat and then from one nostril.
The Health Ministry did not immediately respond when asked if it had
checked whether throat swabs using nasal test kits worked and
whether it had sought advice from the manufacturers.
Rhenium, one of the Israeli importers of antigen kits said that the
Health Ministry had not consulted with it before issuing the new
guidelines and that the tests, not checked by the company for throat
swabs, were intended for nasal swabs.
Sheba Medical Center's Gili Regev-Yochay said that the coupling of
nasal and throat swabs "would likely increase sensitivity" and that
an ongoing study was looking at the combination.
MORE THAN ONE TEST
With Omicron pushing daily infection cases to record highs, Israel's
testing centres have been struggling, prompting health officials to
prioritise risk groups for PCR testing and to trust younger,
vaccinated people to test at home if exposed to a carrier.
[to top of second column] |
 Alroy-Preis said that when
exposed to a carrier, people should take more
than one test or at least wait three days after
exposure before testing with rapid kits.
Some infectious disease experts have advocated
throat swabbing with antigen tests because
people can already transmit Omicron to others
when it has infected their throat and saliva but
before the virus reaches their nose.
A study released on Wednesday on medRxiv before peer review looked
at 29 Omicron-infected workers in high-risk professions who had PCR
and antigen tests done simultaneously on multiple days. The PCR
tests of saliva detected the virus on average three days before
rapid nose-swab samples became positive.
But the FDA tweeted on Friday: "When it comes to at-home rapid
antigen COVID-19 tests, those swabs are for your nose and not your
throat".
Throat swabs, it said, "if used incorrectly, can cause harm to the
patient".
Israel has confirmed around 1.5 million infections since the
pandemic began, and more than 8,000 deaths. Around 60% of its 9.4
million population is fully vaccinated, Health Ministry data shows.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Jo Mason, Hugh Lawson and
Bernadette Baum)
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