By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Dec. 2: In a bid to detect the status of COVID-19 virus in the society faster, the government has started Rapid Antigen Testing for COVID-19 since Monday.
The Government has started the use of Rapid Antigen Testing for the coronavirus to identify the spread of virus in the community.
The first phase testing will be conducted in the Kathmandu Valley. The rapid test is considered faster with results coming out within 20-25 minutes.
The Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD) under the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) started the Antigen-based test since yesterday, informed Dr. Bashudev Pandey, Director of the EDCD.
“Among the 750 antigen tests conducted on Monday, 41 positive cases were found,” said Dr. Pandey.
The tests were conducted among the people who came in contact with the COVID-19 infected people, informed Dr. Pandey.
“We have initiated antigen test based on the contract tracing,” added Dr. Pandey.
The antigen testing has been initiated first in the corona-affected areas of the Kathmandu Valley, which has become a major hotspot.
The test will be carried out by identifying corona-risk areas in Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) in the first phase.
The plan is to conduct antigen testing in the areas like Koteshwor, Chabahil, Balaju among others, according to EDCD. Further tests will be conducted in other places based on the results of the first phase.The results of the test can be known within 20-25 minutes, informed Dr. Pandey.
92.3 % recovery rate
The MoHP on Tuesday confirmed 1,304 new cases of the COVID-19 disease.
As many as 803 males and 501 females were diagnosed with the disease through 8,583 real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests carried out at 77 COVID-19 labs across the country. With this, the total number of cases has advanced to 233,452. 
According to the MoHP, the recovery rate of COVID-19 is estimated at 92.3 per cent, which equals 216,594 recoveries. As many as 2,073 new recoveries were reported on Tuesday. 
As per the latest update, 1,529 COVID-19 patients have succumbed to COVID-19 related health conditions including 21 deaths in the past 24 hours. 
Meanwhile, 530  new cases were detected in the Kathmandu Valley on Tuesday. Of the total cases, 409 were reported in Kathmandu alone while Lalitpur and Bhaktapur registered 85 and 36 infections respectively.