If you’re interested in knowing your status for COVID-19, you’ll probably already be aware that there are two types of COVID-19 Diagnostic Test:
This is the test that tells you if you currently have the virus. Up until recently these tests were reserved for people who were admitted to hospital with symptoms of COVID-19. Lately the availability of these tests have been extended to healthcare professionals, including carers, and to other persons with symptoms in the community. For full guidance on who can currently be tested by the NHS to see if they have COVID, please click here.
We can now supply affordable COVID-19 ANTIBODY TESTS to people who wish to know if they have had the novel, pandemic coronavirus. This requires a licensed-UK-doctor’s referral letter which Dr Alex can provide. The test has FDA EUA approval, is CE-marked across the EU, has been evaluated by Public Health England, and is UK Government-endorsed. For more information, please see below.
This test is for people who want to know if they have had a COVID-19 INFECTION ALREADY. It is called a ‘past exposure’ test, but it is sufficiently sensitive as to be able to detect antibodies that show that you have had an infection, after just 14 days from your first symptoms (if you had symptoms).
So at any time from 2 weeks onwards, you can use this test to see if you have had COVID-19. UPTO VIRTUALLY 100% SPECIFICITY. UPTO 100% SENSITIVITY (depending on time-since-infection & individual factors – this means you need careful clinical guidance & oversight to understand your results, which we uniquely provide. Please see below).
***WE PROVIDE SPECIALIST CLINICAL CONSULTANCY SERVICES TO SUPPORT YOUR APPRAISAL OF WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE OR FOR YOUR WHOLE-OF-BUSINESS TESTING***
AND WE CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH ONGOING CLINICAL UPDATES, AS RELEVANT TO YOUR INDIVIDUAL SITUATION, SO THAT YOU GET MORE & MORE VALUE FROM YOUR RESULT AS THE COVID-19 RESEARCH BASE GROWS.
MORE UNDERSTANDING ABOUT WHY YOU NEED THE RELIABILITY OF THE COVID-19 ANTIBODY TEST WE OFFER
Because the availability of an antibody test is so vital, many inaccurate – dangerously unreliable – cheaply-made tests were sold to people without proper test-validation. Reliable tests take time to develop and validate. We withheld offering any tests until now, and are very pleased to be able to offer you a test with known, assured quality, provided and processed by a leading, and outstanding, quality-assured & medically-led, UK laboratory.
Our test is nearly 100% SPECIFIC – which means that you will not get a positive result if you have not had COVID-19.
There is a 100% SENSITIVITY at just 17 days after you have been exposed to the infection (& caught it). This means that we will pick up if you have had the virus if you take the test more than 17 days after first getting infected. Most other tests are working off 21 day readings.
And it is > 97.5% SENSITIVE at just 14 days – which means that you have more than a 97.5% probability of being found to be positive for COVID-19 IgG antibodies, if you indeed have IgG antibodies, at 14 days. Or put differently, if you get a negative result, there is only a 2.5% chance that you have not in fact had the virus.
The issue of COVID-19 antibody testing is of paramount importance to individuals, and to the country as a whole. Any meaningful strategy for safe, or thought-to-be-safe, exit from lockdown and/or safeguarding measures, to whatever extent, requires us to know whether we are immune or not.
This test only tells us at this time if you have had an infection with this virus – we don’t know as yet if having the antibodies provides ‘protective immunity’ (ie if, having had the infection once, this means you can’t get it again – because you are protected – or that you can’t get it again for a given period of time – if it transpires that the infection confers temporary protective immunity).
As time passes, the body of science continues to grow, and we will be able to tell if there is protective immunity to COVID-19, or temporary protective immunity. And you having had the test now, you will be in a position to back-estimate how immune you are likely to be to further/future infection, having ascertained when you most probably definitely got infected.
***These tests are suitable for ALL AGES – including Children. Many parents are concerned for their kids to undertake these tests before returning to school.***
SO WHAT DOES THE TEST MEASURE & WHAT DOES THE RESULT ‘SAY’?
The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Antibody Test measures a type of antibody (part of the immune response) called IgG, which appears in an individual’s blood shortly after infection – especially-formed to tackle that specific infection. By detecting those very specific IgG molecules in your blood, we know that you have had that specific infection (COVID-19).
An individual’s immune system reacts to the SARS-CoV-2 infection by producing antibodies from a few days to 2 weeks after the onset of symptoms. IgG antibodies are produced after the very first antibodies are produced (called IgM), and there is enough IgG at 14 days for our sensitive test to reliably detect them.
IgM levels drop soon after infection, but IgG will endure longer. If you are interested you can see this example article for more information on COVID-19 ‘seroconversion’ (development of antibodies).
This is important also, because at 14 days the viral ‘RNA’ is no longer detectable – and it’s the RNA that is ‘looked for’ in the Antigen Test that most people who have had tests, have had so far to see if they currently have the infection. After 14 days you can’t reliably test (Antigen Test) to see if you still have the virus, but now you can test to see if you have had the infection with COVID-19 (using the Antibody Test we are offering here).
Most patients who recover from coronavirus have been found to produce antibodies. However it is not yet known if an individual with a positive result – that is, showing presence of IgG levels following being infected with SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) – will be protected, either fully or partially, from future infection, or for how long protective immunity may last. That is because not enough time has elapsed as yet for us to have that information reliably.
But by doing the test now you will know if you have had it. Immunity to the virus is more probable in the first months after infection (although that cannot be guaranteed), so the result may provide you with some measure of risk. And once we know how long any protective immunity lasts, you will also be aware of what was the likely/approximate start of the period of any immunity, for you (a bit like having the dates on a vet’s record of when your dog had a vaccine).
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