Coronavirus: Screening

(asked on 18th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will require all reporting of covid-19 PCR test results to include an estimated measure of viral burden.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 23rd March 2022

We have no plans to do so. Cycle threshold (Ct) is a semi-quantitative value which can broadly categorise the concentration of viral genetic material in a patient sample as low, medium or high. The reporting of many laboratories, including the Lighthouse Laboratories, includes Ct values. However, a single Ct value in the absence of clinical context cannot be relied upon for decision making about a person’s infectivity. Ct values cannot be directly compared between assays of different types. Not all laboratories will use the same assay and some may use more than one.

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