ICMR advises antibody testing in hot spot areas
NEWDELHI:India has allowed faster and cheaper antibody tests to check for the coronavirus disease in so-called hot spots — these show clusters of infections — of which there are 20 in the country, the health ministry said on Thursday.
An expert said the decision could be a game-changer in India’s fight against the pandemic, not just because of the time and the cost, but also because Indian companies and laboratories have experience in doing such antibody tests (which are blood tests) and can easily develop inexpensive kits for it.
The Indian Council of Medical Research advised on Thursday, these tests, a move that will ensure faster detection of all possible cases in these clusters and help authorities buy some time to contain the pandemic.
The test used now — PCR (polymerase chain reaction) — identifies the Sars-CoV-2 virus from throat or nasal swab samples of people with symptoms or high-risk individuals who might have come in contact with a Covid-19 patient.
The antibody detection blood test will identify people who have been infected, but have mild or no symptoms, according to experts who say the move will help us know how many have been able to fight off the infection and have become what could be called a “corona-blocker”. While the results of PCR tests take up to five hours, the antibody test results will be available in 15-30 minutes.
“Population in hot spot areas may be tested using rapid antibody test. And antibody positives to be confirmed by RT-PCR (reverse transcription-PCR) using throat/nasal swab, and antibody negatives to be quarantined at home,” said the interim ICMR advisory. This means positive results will be reconfirmed using the PCR test.
The antibody test uses blood to determine whether a person has antibodies against the coronavirus. Antibodies in the immune system means the person either had the disease at some point in the past, even though the person was never tested for it, and has now recovered, or has the disease now, minus the symptoms.
An ICMR official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, the move will mean getting quicker results even if there is a large number of people.
“However, to ensure there are no false positives or false negatives, we recommend confirmatory PCR-based test for all positive results,” this official said.
Experts say that India’s decision to introduce antibody testing kits could be a game-changer.
“The Indian health system has lot of experience in such tests, like the ones for dengue and chikungunya. So it will be easy to ramp up the screening...a great tool for surveillance, and building epidemiological data. Indian companies would be able to produce them easily,” Lalit Kant, a senior infectious disease expert, said.
THE ANTIBODY
DETECTION BLOOD TEST WILL IDENTIFY PEOPLE WHO ALREADY HAVE BEEN INFECTED, BUT HAVE MILD OR NO SYMPTOMS, ACCORDING TO EXPERTS