The State will conduct extensive antibody testing across the State for COVID-19 surveillance and to detect if community transmission of the disease is happening in Kerala.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said here on Friday that the State had procured 14,000 antibody kits through the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), of which, 10,000 kits had already been supplied to districts.
Another 40,000 kits would be procured in three days, he added.
Mr. Vijayan said that the State expected to conduct 15,000 tests in a week. Once a person was tested COVID-19 positive through antibody testing, he would be tested again using PCR for confirmatory diagnosis, he said.
Senior health officials confirmed that the State had procured the rapid antibody testing kits for COVID-19 manufactured by HLL Lifecare, named “Makesure”.
The kit, validated by NIV and approved by ICMR, is a one-step SARS-CoV-2 simultaneous IgM/IgG Antibody detection from the human serum, plasma and/or whole blood obtained from the patient with signs and symptoms of respiratory infection.
The test kits would aid the rapid differential diagnosis of COVID-19 infection in the community.
While antibody testing is not considered a primary diagnostic modality for COVID-19, during a pandemic, large-scale testing in the community will help in understanding if silent transmission of the virus is happening on the community and the proportion of the population which may already have been infected by the virus, rendering them immune.
The test result can be obtained from the patient’s sample within 15-20 minutes.
Mr. Vijayan said that as about 63% of the people returning to Kerala from abroad and other States seemed to be coming from areas where intense COVID-19 transmission was on, arrangements would be made to test these people as fast as possible.
