Table of contents:
- How does an antibody test check for COVID-19 disease infection?
- 1,024,298
- 831,330
- 28,855
- Undetectable does not mean not infected
- What is an antibody test?
Global cases of the COVID-19 outbreak have now reached around 83,000 and have killed more than 2,800 people. Among the tens of thousands of cases, there is one country that has a fairly low number of cases and deaths despite the frequent visits by Chinese citizens, namely Singapore. In fact, they recently claimed the use of antibody tests to track COVID-19 infection.
This antibody test is said to be more effective than other testing methods for COVID-19. What exactly makes this method favored by Singapore?
How does an antibody test check for COVID-19 disease infection?
With the number of cases and deaths increasing around the world, especially at the epicenter of the disease outbreak, namely Wuhan, China, experts are racing against time to make vaccines.
Meanwhile, researchers in Singapore are trying to find other methods that are more effective at detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is because the test used to track COVID-19, namely RT-PCR, is considered not very efficient.
COVID-19 Outbreak updates Country: IndonesiaData
1,024,298
Confirmed831,330
Recovered28,855
DeathDistribution MapRT-PCR or Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction is an examination to analyze whether the sample contains a virus or not.
Generally, patients who undergo RT-PCR will do swab throat, oral, or anal using a polymerase chain reaction. However, this method has a weakness, which is that it can only detect the presence or absence of a virus in the sample.
RT-PCR cannot identify patients who have an infection, have recovered, or detect whether the virus has disappeared from their bodies.
These limitations eventually led Singapore to develop an antibody test to detect COVID-19 in more detail.
Reporting from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, experts in Singapore are trying to identify COVID-19 by experimenting with antibody tests. Participants who underwent the trial were patients who were suspected of being infected with the virus at a Singapore church.
Unexpectedly, this included antibody test helped Singapore's Ministry of Health identify a COVID-19 case that started in a church. Grace of Assembly God .
From this method they can see who was infected with the virus first, a 28-year-old man. However, the government has not been able to determine how this man got infected with COVID-19.
Undetectable does not mean not infected
Meanwhile, in another group of cases on January 25, 2020, there were a couple who allegedly attended a church service together with tourists from Wuhan.
The couple showed symptoms of COVID-19 and checked themselves into a doctor. However, they were not diagnosed with the virus because they had mild symptoms.
Following the Chinese New Year celebrations, researchers sent the couple to the National Center for Infectious Diseases for tests on February 18.
The reason is because after they recover from symptoms, the experts want to confirm whether they are free from the virus. The couple finally underwent an examination using PCR and antibody tests to detect COVID-19.
The results are quite surprising. The husband tested positive through the PCR test and was hospitalized the next day. On the other hand, his wife tested negative through PCR, but after the antibody test came out a few days later, in her body there were antibodies from COVID-19 just like her husband.
According to Danielle Anderson, a virologist from Duke-NUS at a press conference on Tuesday, experts believe that this is the first time antibody tests have been used in this matter.
However, they are still waiting for the results of serological testing, which is not just following the viral path. That way, researchers can better understand the epidemiology of COVID-19 because many of the cases that have spread have come from asymptomatic patients.
As a result, they have difficulty "finding" the virus in the suspect's body, so the likelihood of an increase in cases in a short time is quite high.
Therefore, antibody tests to identify COVID-19 are expected to support the diagnosis in suspected patients.
What is an antibody test?
An antibody test to identify the virus in suspected COVID-19 patients in Singapore was developed by a team led by Linfa Wang. Linfa Wang is an infectious disease specialist at Duke-NUS. Ordinary people may rarely hear tests based on antibodies in the human body.
An antibody test is an examination that involves analyzing a sample of the patient's blood to see if certain antibodies are present and the amount of antibodies present. Normally, this examination is done for certain diseases, such as allergies and hepatitis A.
In the case of antibody tests used in COVID-19, researchers took blood samples from patients who had recovered. Then, they try to identify the antibodies by targeting a protein spike that can prevent and kill viral cells.
Source: Times of Israel
In the study, they also created a synthetic viral protein that can detect antibodies in a blood sample without needing to use a live virus.
However, this method of examining COVID-19 needs further research to determine whether antibodies will only react to the new virus.
In addition, the research team is also concerned that the similarities between the acute respiratory syndrome virus and SARS-CoV-2 could lead to cross-reactivity. Therefore, they are also trying to develop a way to accurately distinguish the two viruses.
Until now, COVID-19 cases in Singapore have not increased as drastically as in other countries. This may be due to various government efforts to carry out aggressive diagnoses, such as the findings of antibody tests for COVID-19 and stricter quarantines.
