New coronavirus antibody test found to have 100% accuracy, experts find

A new ‘game-changing’ and 100 per cent accurate coronavirus antibody test that can tell whether someone has had the bug has been approved for public use in the UK, public health bosses declared last night.

The test will identity everyone who has had COVID-19 with experts hopeful these people could be immune from catching it again for up to three years.

The Government is in talks with Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant behind the test, to buy millions of the kits that could end the lockdown early.

Public Health England (PHE) announced scientific experts had carried out an independent evaluation of the antibody blood test at its top-secret Porton Down facility and found its results to be ‘highly specific’, identifying every sample from someone who had previously tested positive for coronavirus.

The findings have been hailed as a ‘very positive development’ in combating the coronavirus outbreak.

Scientists hope that those whose body developed antibodies after recovering from the virus could develop immunity for two or three years, making them safe to return to work. But the World Health Organisation has repeatedly cast doubt on whether people can become immune at all.

Professor John Newton, the national coordinator of the UK Coronavirus Testing Programme, said: ‘We were confident that good quality antibody tests would become available when they were needed.

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‘This is a very positive development because such a highly specific antibody test is a very reliable marker of past infection. This, in turn, may indicate some immunity to future infection although the extent to which the presence of anti-bodies indicates immunity remains unclear.’

The test is designed to help determine if a patient has been exposed to the virus that causes Covid-19 and whether they have developed antibodies against it.

Antibody testing, as opposed to antigen tests which look for active viruses, will be key to reopening Britain. A 100 per cent accurate test would enable ministers to reconsider the idea of ‘immunity passports’ so people who have fought off the illness can return to work.

The passports have been mooted by countries across the world as part of the path out of lockdown, but plans were shelved pending a test accurate enough to rely on.

The news comes as Boris Johnson’s government considers the steps Britain must take to balance fighting the virus through lockdowns with economic damage that causes – which was yesterday said to be sparking a ‘recession to end all recessions’.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already issued an emergency use approval for the antibody test, called Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2.

Roche said in a statement late Wednesday it is in talks with National Health Service and the UK government about a phased roll-out of antibody test kits as soon as possible.

(Dailymail)

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE