'Negligence' — Bishop echoes report saying NZ 'slow' with saliva, rapid antigen tests

Rapid antigen testing (file photo).

New Zealand was "slow" to adopt saliva testing and prepare for rapid antigen testing, a new independent report has found, as National savaged the Government’s pandemic response. 

The Covid Technical Advisory Group, chaired by University of Otago professor and infectious diseases expert David Murdoch, released a Government-commissioned report reviewing New Zealand’s Covid-19 testing on Thursday. 

The report was released as the Government announced it would be trialling rapid antigen tests in workplaces .

The report said there had been a “relative slowness” in introducing saliva testing and readying itself for rapid antigen testing. It noted this was “largely driven by an elimination strategy that requires use of the most sensitive tests”. 

Rapid antigen testing tends to be less sensitive than the PCR method  when detecting Covid-19 cases. Sensitivity describes the proportion of people with the virus who return a positive result. 

That lack of sensitivity is particularly apparent when testing people who are asymptomatic or those who are either very early in or towards the end of their infectious period, when they have less of the virus in their bodies. That’s because rapid antigen testing looks for the protein of the Covid-19 virus, rather than its RNA genome. 

What antigen testing lacks in sensitivity, however, it makes up for in speed. Because the process doesn’t require samples to be sent to a lab, it can be done in as little as 15 minutes.

David Murdoch says New Zealand needs to be more agile in its Covid-19 testing strategy.

Speaking to media after the report’s release, Murdoch said New Zealand needed to be more agile when developing its Covid-19 testing strategy. 

“As a country, we were too slow to adopt saliva testing and slow to prepare for rapid antigen testing. We do need to up our game here.”

While other forms of testing would not replace PCR, New Zealand needed to keep an eye out on developments in the field and pilot new technology locally, Murdoch said. 

The report noted that while ESR and The New Zealand Microbiology Network did frequently read new research about new approaches to testing, “there is no systematic assessment of new diagnostic products within the [Ministry of Health]”.

The advisory group recommended the Ministry of Health urgently create a separate group to focus on innovation in the Covid-19 testing space in New Zealand, and that this group partner with Māori, Pasifika, disability, rural, business, and other community groups. A “common theme” they’d heard from Ministry of Health staff was “the inability to focus on future planning” because of heavy workloads.

Murdoch said it was “obvious” to the advisory group that stronger partnerships needed to be formed with innovators within those communities because “one size doesn’t fit all”. 

He also said more needed to be done to retain and recruit lab technicians as the workforce is currently experiencing a shortage.

The National Party had been calling for rapid antigen testing since February. In its 10-step Covid-19 plan , the party advocated for the testing method to be used for essential workers and in the community. It noted the method was not intended to replace PCR testing, but supplement it.

The party’s plan also advocated for daily saliva testing to be rolled out among border workers.

National’s Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop accused the Government on Thursday afternoon of not having a plan and “basically making things up as they go along”. 

But the party’s Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop says it should have come earlier.

“The Government should have been staying ahead of the game trialling and investigating these technologies, not just in the last month when Delta turned up, but at the start of this year,” Bishop said.

“Their negligence and incompetence is unconscionable.”

He said the Government’s rapid antigen test announcement on Thursday was good news, but there was “immense frustration” that New Zealand “hadn’t been ahead of the game”. 

Bishop said the Government had been complacent on vaccines, Covid-19 testing, treatments, ICU capacity and contact tracing. 

Meanwhile, ACT leader David Seymour said the Government took a “long nap” at the start of 2021 when it “could have been preparing our defences”. 

“The Government’s Covid-19 testing strategy has rightly been slated in a new report and its response is too little, too late,” he said.

“The Government’s approach has been centralised and opaque. Those who have tried to partner with it from the private sector have expressed immense frustration. 

“Nothing has epitomised this more than its reluctance to introduce saliva testing and its ban on importing self-test kits that are widely used offshore.”

Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said PCR would remain the mainstay of Covid-19 testing in New Zealand. 

However, as New Zealand continued to increase its vaccination rate, the good news was Covid-19 was becoming “a less threatening and less scary illness”, she said. 

“It might also mean people’s behaviour around testing will change. So, now’s the time to bring in new tools into our toolkit.” 

Verrall said rapid antigen testing would be “critical in identifying cases quickly and responding effectively to any outbreaks”. 

When asked why it took the Government some time to plan for the eventual introduction of rapid antigen testing already being used overseas, Verrall said, "to be fair", there had been “a large amount of innovation” in testing. 

Verrall pointed to whole genome sequencing and the use of wastewater testing for surveillance. 

She said rapid antigen testing had also already been introduced at Middlemore Hospital and is set to start at other Auckland hospitals. 

Rapid antigen testing was also included in the Government’s “reconnecting with the world” plan it released in August. 

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