Scientists from Monash University and Alfred Health develop immunity test for COVID-19

[DavidsSling]

Melbourne scientists are making a test to determine who has immunity to coronavirus, and who remains infectious and is at-risk of developing a severe form of the disease.

Monash University and Alfred Health researchers plan to repurpose technology recently developed to test for a patient's immunity to allergens and influenza. It will be used as a COVID-19 detector.

Researchers would begin receiving cell samples next week from colleagues in Melbourne and three main coronavirus hotspots, including Italy, China and New York.

Scientists are developing a rapid immunity test for COVID-19. (AP)

The test would have the capacity to look for differences in the blood of patients with a mild disease, compared to those with severe infection, in a bid to predict those who may need early medical intervention.

"It is important that we now move from needing a test that simply tells whether someone is infected – which is the priority now – to needing a test that can determine who is infectious, who is immune, who is going to get a serious case of the disease and who will only develop a mild case of upper airway infection," lead researcher Associate Professor Menno van Zelm, from Monash University's Central Clinical School, said.

"This and other tests like it will provide us with a more nuanced approach to managing the disease."

The test, similar to the recently developed test for influenza, looks at 'memory B lymphocytes' which makes antibodies to invading pathogens such as viruses.

If there is evidence of a large population of cells specific to a pathogen, it is likely that person has been infected in the past and will remain immune to COVID-19.

The test is expected to be ready in the coming months.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/c...-covid19/6e995442-7026-423c-9fd0-9a9e11784ea6

 

[R Wing]

Melbourne scientists are making a test to determine who has immunity to coronavirus, and who remains infectious and is at-risk of developing a severe form of the disease.

Monash University and Alfred Health researchers plan to repurpose technology recently developed to test for a patient's immunity to allergens and influenza. It will be used as a COVID-19 detector.

Researchers would begin receiving cell samples next week from colleagues in Melbourne and three main coronavirus hotspots, including Italy, China and New York.

Scientists are developing a rapid immunity test for COVID-19. (AP)

The test would have the capacity to look for differences in the blood of patients with a mild disease, compared to those with severe infection, in a bid to predict those who may need early medical intervention.

"It is important that we now move from needing a test that simply tells whether someone is infected – which is the priority now – to needing a test that can determine who is infectious, who is immune, who is going to get a serious case of the disease and who will only develop a mild case of upper airway infection," lead researcher Associate Professor Menno van Zelm, from Monash University's Central Clinical School, said.

"This and other tests like it will provide us with a more nuanced approach to managing the disease."

The test, similar to the recently developed test for influenza, looks at 'memory B lymphocytes' which makes antibodies to invading pathogens such as viruses.

If there is evidence of a large population of cells specific to a pathogen, it is likely that person has been infected in the past and will remain immune to COVID-19.

The test is expected to be ready in the coming months.

https://www.9news.com.au/national/c...-covid19/6e995442-7026-423c-9fd0-9a9e11784ea6

This is interesting because, as suspected, it probably has to do with certain surface proteins that allow the virus into human cells (esp lung cells) --- the IIBR in Ness Ziona has experimented with 'targeted bioweapons' based on the genetics of the population being targeted. I'm sure other biowarfare institutes have done the same. Scary stuff.

 

[Mista]

Actually Singapore has started using antibody tests back in February to track down infected clusters, because some have already recovered without even knowing they got infected.

Duke-NUS used COVID-19 antibody tests to establish link between church clusters in a world-first

SINGAPORE: In a world-first, a research team at Duke-NUS Medical School established a link between two COVID-19 clusters in Singapore via serological testing on two cases, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced on Tuesday (Feb 25).

The lab tests showed that a couple, cases 83 and 91, were infected with the coronavirus. The couple are linked to the Life Church and Missions Singapore and came into contact with cases 8 and 9, a couple from Wuhan.

Cases 83 and 91 then passed the infection during a Chinese New Year gathering on Jan 25 to Case 66, who works at Grace Assembly of God church and has been determined by MOH to be the primary case in that cluster.

READ: Chinese New Year gathering identified as missing link between COVID-19 church clusters

"This meant that cases 83 and 91 likely got infected from case 8 and 9, and went on to pass the infection to case 66 at the Chinese New Year gathering,” the health ministry said.

Cases 83 and 91 had no symptoms at the time of the investigations, the ministry explained.

Records showed that case 91 had gone to Sengkang General Hospital the day after the gathering with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Case 83 had also been unwell end-January, and repeatedly sought treatment at a GP clinic.

The MOH epidemiology team arranged for cases 83 and 91 to be tested at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases, including the use of serological tests developed by the Duke-NUS team.

Serological tests are tests that look for antibodies in blood samples.

"The test results confirmed they had earlier been infected with COVID-19," MOH said.

READ: Singapore to bar visitors with recent travel history to South Korea's COVID-19 outbreak epicentres Daegu and Cheongdo

HOW THE TESTS WERE USED

According to MOH, Duke-NUS had cultured the COVID-19 virus in less than a week after Singapore confirmed its first case.

"Using the virus and genetic material derived from the virus, the research team had then rapidly developed several specific lab tests to detect the virus-specific antibodies for contract tracing and other applications," said MOH.

MOH said the lab test currently used to confirm the COVID-19 infection is a molecular test called the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) which detects the the presence of viral generic material in a biological sample obtained from a patient.

The drawback with this test, said MOH, was that it would not work if the patient had recovered and the body's immune system has cleared the virus.

"However, the immune system produces antibodies in response to the infection. The virus specific antibodies will stay with the recovered patient for longer periods of time, which could be at least for several years," said MOH.

Using two different antibody testing platforms (virus neutralisation assay and ELISA assay), the Duke-NUS team proved that cases 81 and 93 were infected with COVID-19 in late January 2020, as they had very high levels of the virus-specific antibodies in their blood.

"This result was a significant piece of evidence which confirmed the links between the church clusters and the two Wuhan travellers," added MOH.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid19-coronavirus-duke-nus-antibody-tests-12469184

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There's a local firm which recently developed a test to detect antibodies in 10 minutes and they already got an approval from the authorities.

However antibody test have severe limitations. One may have already recovered, which can be a false positive, or not yet develop antibodies in the early stage, which can be a false negative.

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/local-firm-develops-rapid-test-kit-can-detect-covid-19-less-10-minutes