SENIOR clinical experts say Boris Johnson's "game changing" Covid-19 antibody testing plan may not work and could be a waste of resources.
England's Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has called antibody testing "an important part of our strategy to counter the spread of Covid-19".
It has purchased as many as 10 million home kits and the first phase of its testing programme will focus on NHS and care staff. Clinicians will also be able to request the tests for patients in both hospital and social care settings if they think it is appropriate.
But a letter from academics and clinicians, published in The BMJ, raises questions about the performance of the tests, the clinical reasoning for them and the cost.
They argue that there is currently no valid clinical reason for large scale testing, test performance has not yet been adequately assessed and the strategy risks wasting resources.
Baroness Dido Harding, the head of the NHS test-and-trace programme, has already said too little is known about what level of protection coronavirus antibodies provided.
Writing in the BMJ, the experts say a positive antibody test result “does not indicate immunity” and raise concern about the pace and scale of rollout – which they say is being done without adequate assessment or data on performance in people at high risk, including the elderly and those in black and minority ethnic groups.
They also argue that routine testing of patients does not meet a clear public health need, calling instead for "a carefully developed and clearly articulated strategy" for testing "with clear scientific or clinical aims (or both) as part of a unified covid-19 response strategy”.
And according to Professor Sheila Bird of Edinburgh University’s College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, there are several problems with the evaluation of the Roche and Abbott tests by Public Health England (PHE), including quality of samples, the absence of data on age and sex, and use of repeat samples.
A spokesperson for Roche Diagnostics UK said: "We are rolling out antibody tests to the NHS as part of the crucial next step in understanding the spread of this virus, and providing greater confidence and reassurance as we move into the next phase of our response to this pandemic.”
And PHE stated: “Our evaluations have been completed in record time using the samples and tests that were available to us. We are confident that the volume of samples and methodology was of a high standard.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Social Care said antibody testing “will play an increasingly important role as we move into the next phase of our response to this pandemic.”
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