Proposes a change in the procedure for the issuance of the passport of opportunity: SAM provided its response

In his speech to Minister Arūnas Dulkis, Antėja Laboratorija indicated that the most reliable passport would be issued only after performing a quantitative antibody test, which determines the latest IgG class antibodies.

“Quantitative antibody tests are performed to assess their levels after recurrence of COVID-19 disease or after vaccination. Different classes of antibodies develop in response both during illness and after vaccination. Therefore, both quantitative tests for IgG alone and quantitative tests for IgG, IgM and IgA are suitable for immune response tests to obtain a passport, ”said the Ministry of Health.

Fear of spreading the infection.

According to Eglė Marciuškienė, laboratory medicine consultant and laboratory doctor at Antėja Laboratories, after COVID-19, IgM class antibodies start to be produced in the human body, only IgG class antibodies appear later, which remain in the body for longer.

So in cases where general antibody tests (IgG, IgM and IgA) are done and the response is positive for IgM antibodies, a person can remain ill without knowing it, he said.

“After receiving a positive result of a general antibody test, we cannot rule out that the person may be in the initial, asymptomatic stage of the disease,” confirmed E. Marciuškienė to BNS.

“We fear that people with positive antibody tests in general will go public, misuse the masks, do not wear them sooner and may spread the virus,” he added.

According to the doctor, issuing such a passport to one person runs the risk of infecting another person.

“We are not saying that the test is bad, it is good at the beginning, when a certain infection is suspected,” said E. Marciuškienė.

I don’t see any problem

Aurelija Žvirblienė, a professor at the Vilnius University Institute of Biotechnology, says that most laboratories already test with IgG class antibodies, and not their entire group.

“I just don’t see any problem because the vast majority of labs detect IgG class antibodies. (…) I don’t understand this proposal, ”said A. Žvirblienė.

He also said that during this coronavirus infection, “IgM antibodies appear much later, they do not appear during infection,” so the chances of one person infecting another are very low.

“This virus behaves in a very strange way, those IgM antibodies that should be the first antibodies that appear on the third or fifth day for other diseases and that a person can potentially become infected, but because of what we have done and what has been published the investigation. concerned, these infections. In this case, IgM appears quite late, after about two weeks, along with IgG actually, ”said the VU professor.

“It is very unlikely that a person will be infected,” he added.

At present, the passport of opportunity can be obtained in Lithuania not only after an illness, when the illness was confirmed by a PCR test or an antibody test after the illness, but also by vaccination or periodic tests.