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Teesside Pete,
I
Thanks for the article , but is not the basis that whether a virus or a vaccine the idea is we develop antibodies . This gives us protection , but the variable factor is for how long.
Agree staff still using ppe who are antibody positive because phe will no doubt be the last people to change advice . So far there advice has been pretty abysmal . But antibodies not been around for covid for long to know enough about it .
Good to see however relaxation of soMe ppe rules in our hospital.
None of the people I know who are antibody positive have suddenly stopped wearing PPE. They are just as cautious as the rest of us
Snowking any reason you want to know which hospital I work for? Weird
You ever caught a cold? Twice? People who have been vaccinated against flu can still (and often do) get flu but the more immediate immune response provided by the vaccine can help reduce the severity of the illness. Sadly having antibodies does not guarantee immunity, irrespective of how daft one is. Read some science if you don’t believe me
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X18309976?via%3Dihub
Continued.....
Do antibodies really protect us?
But Sir John, his team, and countless other scientists across the world are yet to answer the most crucial question, namely whether having Covid-19 antibodies actually protects a person from being reinfected. The three major studies currently underway which hope to answer that question are expected to see some results by the autumn, he said.
“These studies are what the UK is really good at, let me tell you, much better than anybody else. The Americans don’t have any of these studies,” Sir John said.
“But until we have answers, the test’s only utility is to tell people whether they've had the disease, not whether they’re protected from another wave of the infection.
“It’s useful in an analytical sense so that we can see the spread, but it’s no use to the man on the street.
“Everybody wants these tests, and people are saying ‘I wonder if that cough I had in March with a fever was actually Covid?’ And as a result, they want an antibody test to see whether that’s true or not. But it’s actually not much help yet in terms of returning to normal life.
And until it can be proved that antibodies confer protection, all talk of the “famous immunity passports” will have to wait, Sir John added.
Close to a breakthrough
So far every ten minute ‘lateral flow test’ (where finger prick blood is fed through a pregnancy-style cassette at home) tested by Public Health England (PHE) has been found wanting. The only validated options are so-called ELISA tests, where blood is taken intravenously by a medical professional and then analysed in a lab, which of course takes time.
However, Sir John believes his team are on the brink of a breakthrough.
Last week PHE launched a study into the effectiveness of a number of home testing kits, including one developed by the Rapid Test Consortium, involving Oxford University and four UK manufacturers: BBI Solutions, Abingdon Health, CIGA Healthcare and Omega Diagnostics. The results are due in late summer.
“We know the analytical quality is good,” Sir John said.
“All we need is the science that supports the notion that having antibodies is protection. We’re doing those experiments at the moment, and we’re doing them alongside T-cell studies.
“All I can say is we hope and think this Rapid Test Consortium test is the real deal, a game changer, if you like,” Sir John said.
“I foresee an antibody test appearing before the end of the year, and this may well be the one we’ve been waiting for."
From the recent Telegraph article :
The T-cell problem
Moreover, in recent weeks Sir John’s team has been grappling with a new challenge that in a worst case scenario could mean ten-minute finger prick tests would simply “never happen”.
A growing body of evidence now suggests that antibodies may form only a fraction of the body’s defence against the virus, Sir John explained. Instead, a separate part of the immune system, a type of white blood cell called T-cells, may be largely responsible.
“Let me tell you what the problem is,” Sir John said. “Around half of the immune response to this virus is through antibodies, and the other half is cellular.
“The cellular response is the bit of this formula that we don’t have yet. We’re busy working on that.
“Ideally, you’d want a finger prick test that people could use at home for antibodies, and a similar test for T-cells. The trouble is that measuring T-cell response is complicated. You really have to do it in a lab.
“The idea of sitting at home and testing your T-cell response just won’t happen. It’s about the complexity.”
Earlier this week a widely reported study found that around 30 per cent of Swedish blood donors had developed T-cell immunity to coronavirus – twice the number of cases in which antibodies were detected.
Yet, Sir John still believes that antibody testing will have an important role to play. He pointed to previous outbreaks of SARS and MERS, other types of coronavirus, where scientists found T-cell responses were largely simultaneous with antibodies.
In other words, if a person had developed antibodies to SARS or MERS, they usually had the T-cell response too, and vice versa. The T-cell responses tended to last longer, adding hope that protection may be long lived.
“We’re hoping that Covid behaves in a similar way,” Sir John said.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about the Swedish study, it was quite small. If everybody who has an antibody response also has a strong cellular response, then it’s possible that antibody tests might tell you that people will be protected for a long period of time. That would be an extremely useful piece of information, but we just don’t know yet.”
Natural immunity
As the virus gradually fades after initially spreading quickly, UK scientists are now considering a so-called ‘challenge study’ where volunteers known to have Covid-19 antibodies and T-cells are deliberately reinfected to test their response, Sir John revealed.
“You can’t do that until you’ve got a salvage therapy, because the risk is that somebody gets sick,” he said.
“But I think some of the new neutralising therapies look pretty good so if somebody ever got sick, you could fix it. I suspect the challenge study will be in the mid-autumn or by the end of the year. That
My career background is armed robbery and money laundering. That's why I like the markets.
Only joking before someone reports me.
On that note. Good evening all.
Woodie
People I know are having their antibodies tested to be able to not worry so much being on the frontline , yes some for fun. But in the hospital it is not fun
Thanks, I’m not sure it’s a great post though! Just my musings. I’ve not got the hang of saying exactly the opposite of what I want the sp to do just to make some profit.
The downside of course being until there is a vaccine having your IgG level checked is pretty much for fun! And a vaccine seems a lonnnng way off. But governments do like headlines like x more tests done this month, even if the results are pointless, so let’s hope we all profit from their desire not to look as powerless as they really are in the face of this
Good post teeside pete
Teeside Pete,
Which is your hospital .
Antibodies do give immunity , that is the basis of why humans survived .
So all those saying antibodies does not mean immunity are daft . The basis of fighting the covid is antibodies , also why bother giving plasma transfusions .
Many in my hospital were negative due to the useless Roche antibody test , which is a disgrace . Only 8 patients in there study showing 100% sensitivity
I was saying last night you will find posters on these boards from different careers, education and knowledge in particular fields.
TeessidePete. Thanks for great post.
Atb
Spain’s population is roughly 50m, around 300,000 positive cases....
I doubt antibody (IgG) testing will be very useful in the immediate future, apart from helping us understand how many people develop them after a positive test. Still, pretty much everyone at the hospital I work at opted to have theirs tested just out of curiosity! Interestingly, only those who had had a positive test seemed to come out as having antibodies, though a very few people tested positive and hadn’t had symptoms whereas a very few had been unwell and tested positive but hadn’t developed antibodies. But, getting your antibodies checked doesn’t really mean a great deal at present, especially as it’s unclear whether or for how long you would be immune. However, when a vaccine comes into play, every single vaccinated person will need to go on to have the IgG level checked, like us doctors need to have done for Hepatitis before performing invasive procedures.
So every vaccination will need at least one if not more IgG test to ensure efficacy. That’s lots of tests no matter how you slice it!
I thought that 5% was on the low side. Which means that either the tests being used aren’t picking up antibodies or not everybody who contracts Covid produces antibodies. Sounds a bit hit or miss from a testing point of view..
Spain's large-scale study (61k people) indicates just 5% of its population has developed coronavirus antibodies - ie herd immunity “unachieveable” without vaccines. Largest antibody study in Europe according to European CDC