Rapid Flu Test Can Miss Novel H1N1 Virus A negative rapid flu
test did not necessarily mean that the patient did not have the
2009 H1N1 influenza, said experts at Baylor College of Medicine
and Texas Children’s Hospital in a report that appeared online
Feb. 15 in the journal Pediatrics. "The test was specific. That
means that if it was positive, it’s very likely that the child
truly had influenza. However, the test was not very sensitive. A
negative test did not mean the child did not have the flu," said
Dr. Andrea T. Cruz, assistant professor of pediatrics ““
emergency medicine at BCM and Texas Children’s Hospital and lead
author of the study. Don’t rule out H1N1 The study compared more
than 3,000 rapid influenza diagnostic tests for H1N1 influenza
collected over a four-month period to results from the two long-
term tests considered the gold standard: real-time reverse-
transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and viral culture
results. The reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction
test uses cutting-edge