New antibody test is ‘incredibly important’ in fight against Covid
ENGLAND’S DEPUTY Chief Medical Officer has said a new antibody test which has been approved by health experts would be “incredibly important” in the fight against coronavirus.
Public Health England (PHE) gave its backing for the new test from the pharmaceutical giant Roche yesterday, after experts at its Porton Down facility gave it the go-ahead.
Deputy CMO Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said it will be “rapidly rolled out in the days and weeks to come as soon as it is practical to do so”.
Prof Van-Tam said scientists still needed to discover whether antibodies offered immunity and for how long they persisted.
“But the good news is we do now have antibody tests that we absolutely can rely on,” he said.
The test – which Prime Minister Boris Johnson has previously called a “game-changer” – picks up cases where somebody has
had coronavirus in the past, and can be used on people who experienced no symptoms. Prof VanTam said the test would be “incredibly important” in the weeks and months ahead.
Professor Sir John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, said the development of the antibody test was “a good result”.
He added: “It’s a step in the right direction. In the evolution of these antibody tests, to get one that works really well is a major step forward.”
Sir John said antibodies “stick around probably for a year or two”, adding that the Roche test was the “best approved test available on the market now”.
However, Professor Matthew Baylis, an expert in veterinary epidemiology at the University of Liverpool, cast doubt on the test.
He suggested that it could produce false positive results and lead to people being reassured when they should not be during the coronavirus crisis.
Speaking at yesterday’s Downing Street briefing, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, said if antibodies provide immunity it would be “game changing because it would enable us to do things in terms of releasing lockdowns that wouldn’t be possible otherwise”.