A separate test – one that detects an immune cell, called a T cell – was more effective, according to the study.
Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Baylor K. Ledge Medicine. “This means. It is well known that antibodies are destroyed, but T cells have an immune system,” said Peter Hotez.
In the study, researchers from Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States studied people in Italy to learn more about the accuracy of the test.
They performed blood tests on 70 people who confirmed a case of coronavirus about two months ago.
Theoretically, all of those 70’s should come up with positive results on antibody testing. But antibody testing returned negative results in 16 cases or 23%. T cell test missed only 2 cases, or about 3%.
The researchers also tested 2,200 people who tested negative for Covid-19. Of these, positive results were returned for 45 of the T cell tests.
The co-worker on paper said he suspected that many of these 45 people had coronavirus at some point but had no idea. Of those 45, 25 either had symptoms at some point or lived with someone who had a confirmed case of Covid-19, or both.
That co-founder, Dr. L. Lance Baldo, is the company’s chief medical officer who uses T cell testing in the study.
The data was announced on Tuesday at a call from investors at the company conducting the adaptive biotechnologies. The company has not provided these funds and the data has not been published.
Adaptive is planning to launch its T cell testing commercially in late November and the U.S. The Food and Drug Administration plans to apply for an Emergency Use Authority.
While T cell tests are currently used for research, they are not widely used commercially for patients.
There is more than one way to theoretically test for a previous infection with any virus because many cells – including T cells and antibodies – are involved in the body’s efforts to fight the virus.
“It’s like a military operation, where you have different components. The navy has landed on the shore, the air force is attacking from afar, the army is coming with artillery,” said Dr. F. Andy, a former FDA commissioner. Andrew von Eschenbach said. “When something tries to attack us, our body’s fights are very sophisticated and complex.”
Once the body fights the invader, the antibodies usually decompose over time.
The source of the antibodies – the factory that makes them – dies within a few months, said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale School of Medicine.
T cells, on the other hand, stick for a while.
“For other viruses they have been shown to last for years. For this virus we don’t know how long they last, but we will expect at least a few years.”
Not only do T cells stick, but they remember how to fight coronavirus in a special way.
“You make a lot of them, and they live in the lung tissue and other tissues affected by the virus – they’re just sitting there,” Iwasaki said.
Still, it’s not clear if T Sales will save anyone from getting Covid-19 a second time.
“This is an experiment that Mother Nature will do for us,” said Von Eschenbach.
CNN’s Sierra Jenkins and Samira Said contributed to the story.
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