COVID-19 self-test kits are put on a counter at a pharmacy in Seoul on Jan. 25, 2022, amid the rapid spread of the omicron variant. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — As the government is offering self-test kits to the public for initial tests for COVID-19, controversy looms over the accuracy of these kits.
The Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine argued that the level of accuracy for these self-test kits stands at a maximum of 41.5 percent, with a 58.5 percent chance of testing false negative.
With the proportion of positive tests rising above the 20 percent mark, the problem of false test results has become far more serious.
In other cases, many people are also testing false positive using these self-diagnosis kits.
The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters conducted a study of 84,000 self-test kit test results between Jan. 26 and 31, which showed that 0.8 percent (687 cases) tested positive for COVID-19.
Later, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests confirmed that, among them, test results for 523 cases were authentic with the remaining 164 results (23.9 percent) classified as false positives.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
