{"id":350,"date":"2020-04-21T21:03:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T04:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/?p=350"},"modified":"2020-04-21T21:03:02","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T04:03:02","slug":"the-promise-and-peril-of-antibody-testing-for-covid-19-infectious-diseases-jama-jama-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/2020\/04\/21\/the-promise-and-peril-of-antibody-testing-for-covid-19-infectious-diseases-jama-jama-network\/","title":{"rendered":"The Promise and Peril of Antibody Testing for COVID-19 | Infectious Diseases | JAMA | JAMA Network"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>In the first such community-wide campaign in the US, the San Miguel County Department of Health offered the voluntary screening to most of the area\u2019s 8000 residents over 2 weeks. Just 8 of the 986 individuals tested on March 26 and 27 were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Another 23 were borderline, suggesting that they\u2019d recently been exposed to the virus and were just starting to make antibodies against it. But those were early days. The screenings, paid for by test manufacturer United Biomedical Inc and the county, eventually would be repeated to see how much things had changed.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests\u2014also referred to as molecular or nucleic acid\u2013based tests\u2014antibody tests aren\u2019t intended to identify active SARS-CoV-2 infections. Instead of detecting viral genetic material in throat or nasal swabs, antibody tests reveal markers of immune response\u2014the IgM and IgG antibodies that for most people show up in blood more than a week after they start to feel sick, when symptoms may already be waning.<\/p>\n<p>Serologic antibody tests not only can confirm suspected cases after the fact, they can also reveal who was infected and didn\u2019t know it. Up to a quarter of people with SARS-CoV-2 infection may unwittingly spread the virus because they have mild or no symptoms.<\/p>\n<p>Implications for the health care workforce could be substantial, microbiologist Florian Krammer, PhD, of Mount Sinai\u2019s Icahn School of Medicine, said in an interview. \u201cIf we find serologically that you are immune, it\u2019s very unlikely that you can get reinfected, which means you can\u2019t pass the virus on to your colleagues or to other patients. And I think it also gives a peace of mind if you have to work with COVID-19 patients to know that you\u2019re probably immune to the infection,\u201d he explained.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Via: <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2764954\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow external noopener noreferrer\" class=\"wpel-icon-left\"><i class=\"wpel-icon dashicons-before dashicons-admin-links\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i>The Promise and Peril of Antibody Testing for COVID-19 | Infectious Diseases | JAMA | JAMA Network<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the first such community-wide campaign in the US, the San Miguel County Department of Health offered the voluntary screening to most of the area\u2019s 8000 residents over 2 weeks. Just 8 of the 986 individuals tested on March 26 and 27 were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Another 23 were borderline, suggesting that they\u2019d recently &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/2020\/04\/21\/the-promise-and-peril-of-antibody-testing-for-covid-19-infectious-diseases-jama-jama-network\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notordinary.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}