Developing antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2
Anna Petherick
Published:April 04, 2020DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30788-1
Laboratories and diagnostic companies are racing to produce antibody tests, a key part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Anna Petherick reports.
In response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), governments have instigated rules that constrain personal freedoms and hamstring their own economies, placing approximately 3 billion people under lockdown. Some have rolled out widespread testing for current infections, while others limited these tests to people who were hospitalised, atleast during the early stages of their responses. As new controls begin to bite, the race to develop and approve a test with a different purpose—to assess not current viral infection, but immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)—has heated up. Medical diagnostic companies are scrambling, and governments are looking to order these antibody tests by the millions.
