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United States Begins Coronavirus Immunity Tests

2020-04-06T21:30:29.748Z



Several studies have been launched in recent days in the United States to test, in samples of the population, how many people have actually been infected with the new coronavirus and are potentially immune.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has started a study in the most active hot spots of the epidemic, according to the specialized website Statnews. This type of test, called serology, looks for specific antibodies in a person's blood, in order to see if they have already encountered the coronavirus, even without knowing it, as is common. When the immune system encounters a virus, it stores its memory in the form of antibodies, often for life.

Read also: LIVE - Coronavirus: Boris Johnson admitted to intensive care

The CDC director said that perhaps a quarter of those infected with the coronavirus had no symptoms.

Separately, Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford in California, told AFP that he collected blood samples from 2,500 volunteers in Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley) on Saturday, chosen to be representative of the county's population, as well as 500 of their children. A few drops of blood were taken by a quick prick on a finger. "We will publish the prevalence figure as soon as humanly possible," says Jay Bhattacharya.

Also in California, researchers from the University of Southern California are planning a study in the coming days in Los Angeles on 1,250 volunteers representative of the city's population. "The results are expected to be published by April 15," study leader Professor Neeraj Sood told AFP.

The objective of many governments is to generalize these tests in order to determine who can break out of the confinement to which half of humanity is today subjected. But not all antibody tests are equal and do not tell whether the person, while having encountered the virus, has enough antibodies to be protected against future infection.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-04-06

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