A PAS lawmaker today urged the government to stop advising the public to conduct Covid-19 saliva self-tests if the accuracy of their results are questionable.

Datuk Che Abdullah Mat Nawi (Tumpat-PAS) argued that it will be financially wasteful for users to conduct tests using the RTK-Ag kits if the results are often inaccurate.

Speaking in Parliament, he said that he personally saw that a self-test kit is unreliable compared to a RT-PCR test.
“I experienced it for myself. I had symptoms for three days, and took the saliva test every morning and evening, but they all gave me negative results,” he said in a supplementary question to Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi today.

“Finally, when I took the PCR test, I was confirmed positive. This is such a waste (of money) for consumers.”

The minister acknowledged that PCR tests are more accurate, opposed to saliva tests, but said he lacked the medical expertise to provide a detailed answer.
“If the saliva test is inaccurate, then it is better that the ministry advise the public not to use it. It’s pointless if it is inaccurate.”

Separately, Nanta said the government is currently studying the need to lower the ceiling prices of self-test kits as well as introduce a price cap on other medical devices such as oximeters and thermometers.

At the moment, the retail ceiling price of self-test kits is set at RM19 while the wholesale price is capped at RM16.

He added that the government sees no need to revise the ceiling price for masks as they are currently sold below the cap of 7 sen per single-ply unit, 20 sen per double-ply unit and 70 sen per triple-ply unit.

Earlier, Nanta said his ministry and the Medical Device Authority (MDA) under the Health Ministry are consistently monitoring to ensure the best quality of self-test kits are in the market.

He added that to date, MDA had already conducted eight raids and 10 seizures on companies that were illegally distributing testing kits.
“This is proof that MDA is carrying out its duty with the ministry to ensure the kits are of good quality,” he said, responding to Cha Kee Chin (Rasah-PH) on the action taken by the government to guarantee the reliability and authenticity of the kits.

Source: Stop suggesting Covid-19 self-tests if inaccurate, PAS MP tells govt

WE GOT A C0V1D POSITIVE PERSON TO TRY 10 RTK SELF TEST KITS… HERE’S HOW MANY FAILED.

Compared to the PCR nasal swabs, rapid self test kits (RTK) are faster, cheaper, and less invasive – leading us to salivate more voluntarily than a candidate in a Pavlov experiment. However, you might also have seen posts from people who tested negative on RTK tests, only to find out that they were actually positive after a PCR.



An increase in these incidents, especially with the new variant, have brought the reliability of RTK tests into question, with our health minister recently instructing the Medical Device Authority (MDA), the agency in charge of approvals of self test kits, to call up suppliers to get quality assurance information from manufacturers.

But with so many brands at even more price points, we were curious as to how well effective they were so we did the most obvious thing: We sent a bunch of RTKs to a reader who was con9firm positive and asked her to spit into each one of them.

We sent Olivia (fake name by request) 10 RTK brands that we bought from various pharmacies and had her use them in one sitting, and following the instructions on each kit. Just to be on the safe side, we also sent her 2 units of each brand because….science. We know you’re itching to see the results, so we’ll leave the explanations and stuff for the end of the article so yea – here are the results

Nasal swab kits
It’s a mixed bag when it comes to nasal swab RTKs – some studies claim that the saliva test should be to go-to, others say there are no significant differences between the two. We sent Olivia Salixium, a saliva/nasal swab hybrid kit and SD Biosensor, an exclusively nasal swab kit.

Read more in the cilisos link...click here!