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AFP
Antibody tests are already underway in many other countries.
Volunteers from NHS staff and other public service workers are being sought for a study on the effectiveness of Covid-19 antibody home test kits.
Several rapid response kits will be studied, including one from a consortium that includes the University of Oxford.
The prime minister has described the test to see if anyone has already had coronavirus as a game changer to get people back to work.
Public Health England has started looking for 2,500 volunteers for the study.
Experts have questioned the usefulness of the tests because little is known about whether the antibodies protect people from the virus, but the government said the study would help understand Covid-19.
A Health Department spokesman said: “A reliable test has not yet been found at home, and we do not know whether the antibodies indicate immunity against reinfection or transmission.”
“This research is part of our ongoing surveillance work to increase our understanding of how to approach this virus.”
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Reuters
Health workers have already been participating in a study involving antibody tests
Commercial tests, which ask the user to send a blood sample to a laboratory, have been suspended in the UK, and people have been warned not to buy unapproved tests.
In March, the government purchased 3.5 million home antibody tests, but scientists at the University of Oxford found that they were not reliable.
Public Health England (PHE) launched a separate study of 10,000 healthcare workers involving blood tests for antibodies to learn more about immunity to the virus.
The Rapid Testing Consortium, which involves the University of Oxford and four UK manufacturers, BBI Solutions, Abingdon Health, CIGA Healthcare and Omega Diagnostics, has claimed that its device, which uses a blood stick on the finger to produce results in 10 minutes, it is highly accurate.
Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, who has been overseeing the government’s antibody testing validation and strategy, said: “We have really set the gold standard in what to expect from these tests and I suspect that there are many people who will be really interested in what we have produced in the last months. “
PHE has been planning to recruit 2,500 volunteers to see how effective and easy the tests would be, with initial results expected in late summer.
Sir John Bell has been overseeing the government antibody testing and validation strategy
