Second antibody test spots 100% of virus sufferers
A NEW antibody test produced by medical giant Abbott has been approved by UK public health leaders after spotting 100% of those who have had coronavirus.
It is the second antibody test to be ratified in Britain in two days, following the approval of a kit made by Roche Diagnostics.
The tests detect whether someone has had the virus and then recovered – which could indicate that they may be immune to reinfection. This comes after one Irish expert said antibody tests could be available here next month.
Abbott last night said it had already started shipping equipment to NHS labfollowing oratories in the UK in preparation for the tests to be given to the first recipients within days.
A spokesman for the firm said it had capacity to provide five million tests a month to the UK ‘with immediate effect’.
The Abbott and Roche tests are the first antibody tests to be ratified as accurate by Public Health England.
On Wednesday, Cillian De Gascun, medical virologist and director of UCD’s National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL), said that an antibody test could be available here in Ireland next month.
Speaking at a HSE press briefing the news that the Roche test was ratified in the UK, Dr De Gascun said: ‘Any antibody test that comes to the market will be evaluated and validated.
‘We are currently undertaking that process so we would hope to be able to start prevalence studies probably sometime in June, all going well, assuming ethical approval.
He added: ‘The new platform you’re talking about in the NVRL actually is manufactured by Roche; it’s a molecular platform and that’s been working very well.’
‘It has streamlined the process and has made it less manual at various steps, so it’s worked well.’
As long as they are used least 14 days after someone has developed symptoms, both the Roche and Abbott tests pick up 100% of cases.
They also have high ‘specificity’ – meaning they generate very few ‘false positives’, which is when it is indicated that someone has been infected when they have not.
Professor Matt Keeling, of the University of Warwick in England, said: ‘This could be a complete game-changer. The key is the very high sensitivity and specificity.
High sensitivity means that if you’ve previously had coronavirus, the test will correctly identify this; this likely means that such individuals are at lower risk of catching the virus again.
‘High specificity means that if you haven’t had coronavirus the test will correctly identify this.’
Scientists last night stressed that although the two tests offer useful information about who has been infected and where the disease has spread, it is not yet clear what proportion of these people will be immune to the disease.