Serology assessment of antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in patients with COVID-19 by rapid IgM/IgG antibody test.

De Marinis Y, Sunnerhagen T, Bompada P, Bläckberg A, Yang R, Svensson J, Ekström O, Eriksson K, Hansson O, Groop L, Gonçalves I, Rasmussen M

Infect Ecol Epidemiol 10 (1) 1821513 [2020-09-20; online 2020-09-20]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created a global health- and economic crisis. Detection of antibodies to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which causes COVID-19 by serological methods is important to diagnose a current or resolved infection. In this study, we applied a rapid COVID-19 IgM/IgG antibody test and performed serology assessment of antibody response to SARS-CoV-2. In PCR-confirmed COVID-19 patients (n = 45), the total antibody detection rate is 92% in hospitalized patients and 79% in non-hospitalized patients. The total IgM and IgG detection is 63% in patients with <2 weeks from disease onset; 85% in non-hospitalized patients with >2 weeks disease duration; and 91% in hospitalized patients with >2 weeks disease duration. We also compared different blood sample types and suggest a higher sensitivity by serum/plasma over whole blood. Test specificity was determined to be 97% on 69 sera/plasma samples collected between 2016-2018. Our study provides a comprehensive validation of the rapid COVID-19 IgM/IgG serology test, and mapped antibody detection patterns in association with disease progress and hospitalization. Our results support that the rapid COVID-19 IgM/IgG test may be applied to assess the COVID-19 status both at the individual and at a population level.

Category: Serology

Funder: VR

Type: Journal article

PubMed 33062217

DOI 10.1080/20008686.2020.1821513

Crossref 10.1080/20008686.2020.1821513

pii: 1821513
pmc: PMC7534290


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