A Covid-19 antibody test developed at Lausanne university hospital (CHUV) has been chosen for wide-scale studies of the Swiss population, the hospital has announced.
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Selection of a single serology test was necessary for consistent and comparable data at national level, CHUV said on Thursday.
The hospital announced in June that one of its teams had developed a new coronavirus antibody blood test in collaboration with the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and the Swiss Vaccine Research Institute.
“Compared to other commercially available tests, the technology developed at the CHUV has a 15-30% higher sensitivity, making it possible to detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 long after infection, even in people with few or no symptoms,” CHUV said in a press release.
Corona Immunitas, the government-backed antibody testing programme, has now chosen it for nationwide tests. Supported by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), Corona Immunitas is in charge of coordinating more than 20 population studies to estimate the number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Switzerland.
Such studies are very useful from an epidemiological point of view and may also help determine immunity levels to the virus.
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While we await a vaccine or treatment, scientists are developing tests to tell us how widespread the virus is, such as the serological test.
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