During the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid tests had been widely deployed for contact tracing and disease screening. Following the subsidence of outbreaks, the practice of rapid testing was still adopted by some community members for various purposes. With rapid test devices continuing to be developed, the coverage of testing has now been extended to pathogens other than SARS-CoV-2, including influenza A/B virus and RSV. In a single run, the detection of multiple pathogens could also be carried out simultaneously. Known as “multiplex testing”, the role of these tests has however been understudied in the post-COVID era.
As one of the pioneers worldwide, EcSS+ has piloted the strategy of multiplex rapid testing as one of the research initiatives at community level. For each household enrolled in EcSS+, they were offered multiplex rapid test kits for testing when presenting with influenza-like symptoms and asked to upload the test results. Different from surveillance which relied on the report of influenza-like illness as a proxy, multiplex testing could possibly provide a specific diagnosis for each case of respiratory syndromes. With widespread adoption in the population, we anticipate that the use of multiplex testing could refine the breadth of public health surveillance and enhance decision-making in clinical practices.