Antibody test for healthcare workers is sent to Florida, California, and Washington
A top New York City hospital sent potentially breakthrough testing material to medical facilities in Florida, California, and Washington state this week to determine which healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic have developed a level of immunity to the coronavirus.
The antibody test, developed by the Krammer Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, could help hospitals in the nation’s hardest hit areas identify whether first responders have already recovered from exposure to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
“Our test can identify individuals that have already been exposed to the virus and recovered,” Fatima Amanat, the first author on the scientific paper outlining the test, told McClatchy. “In the general sense, everyone should be able to get this test to have it for peace of mind. But as of now, because we’re still building this out, we’re really focused on the nurses and the doctors who are essential to treating patients without risk of infection.”
If an individual’s blood sample shows that antibodies are present, that individual will have had the virus and no longer be contagious, Amanat said. Those antibodies should also protect the individual either from future infection or, even if they do get reinfected, from being able to spread it to others.
The test has become a sign of hope for the Trump administration and state and local governments searching for a public health strategy that will get individuals who have had the disease and recovered back into the workforce, restarting a national economy that has effectively ground to a halt.
Mount Sinai is already using the test on its own health care workers in New York City, which is dealing with the nation’s most acute outbreak. The hospital published a detailed protocol for the antibody test online on Monday and also sent out reagents – material for the tests – to university hospitals in California and a large medical center in Florida.
“Washington should have this going in the next 7-10 days,” said Amanat, who described the test as a rapid process that could run hundreds of samples a day.
President Donald Trump has said he would like to end “social distancing” for parts of the country by Easter. The administration is considering guidelines that would allow some groups of Americans to return to work earlier than other, more high-risk populations.
Democrats and Republicans
alike are searching for ways to responsibly restart the economy.
“We all believe thousands and thousands of people have had the virus and selfresolved. If you knew that, you would know who is now immune to the virus and who you could send back to work,” Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, said on Monday.
Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, on Tuesday said that multiple antibody tests were being examined by the Food and Drug Administration, which last month relaxed its rules on market use of body fluid tests.
“What has been pretty good about the coronaviruses in general is they keep their structural pieces very similar,” Birx said in a virtual town hall hosted by Fox News. “We believe that anybody who becomes positive and makes effective antibody – because there are some people who can’t make as good of antibody as others – but if you make effective antibody, you shouldn’t get re-infected.”
Some medical experts are proceeding with caution, warning that an individual’s level of immunity to the virus after initial infection remains unknown, as with so much else about the new pathogen.
Major diagnostic companies are already competing to produce the antibody tests on a massive scale.
Roche, a Swiss company that the Trump administration turned to this month to provide large-scale testing for individuals who currently have COVID-19, told McClatchy it is working to develop additional tests for the coronavirus “based on the additional benefits for improved patient and disease management decisions.”
Asked whether the company is in communication with state or federal government officials on the development of a mass use antibody test, Elizabeth Baxter, a spokesperson for Roche, said: “Based on our present assessment of how the situation is evolving and the acute needs of the different healthcare systems, we are actively and urgently assessing both internal and external testing solutions.”