The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives in unpredictable ways. Scientists around the globe are on a race against time to find better testing and treatment mechanisms in order to lower the number of cases worldwide. The current diagnostics tests monitor viral genetic material in respiratory secretions, however, this only detects whether or not the disease was present in the patient at the time of the test. Now, scientists are looking to learn about the antibody response of patients in order to find more about the disease in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. Through more extensive tests we can learn more about the virus itself, the antibody response of patients. This could help us learn how to better treat patients and when we can return back to “normal life”.
A team of scientists at Stanford Medicine have developed a test that can now detect antibodies in the plasma of the patient. According to this article, the test takes 2-3 day to receive results about the antibodies in the patient. This test monitors the IgM and IgG antibodies present during the viral infection of the patient. IgM antibodies are present towards the beginning of the infection and their quantity quickly decreases. IgG antibodies appear slowly after infection and stay longer than IgM antibodies. This test will allow for scientists to determine the number of mild infections present in the general public by detecting antibodies in asymptomatic patients. In the future, it will also help determine the amount of time that the antibody can provide protection to the patient from being reinfected. Some scientists in this article even suggest that convalescent plasma collected from these tests with antibodies from people recovering with COVID-19 could help treat acute COVID-19
The results of the test can be either negative or positive for both IgM or IgG. Results where IgM titers are present indicate that the infection is recent or still active because these antibodies are the first to be generated in response to an infection. Patients with both IgM and IgG titers indicate that a patient has been infected for a longer period of time and is reaching the end of the infection. The IgM antibodies are replaced by IgG as the infection progresses, so patients with only IgG antibodies indicate that they have been infected and could possibly be immune. According to this article, detecting levels of IgG in a patent could possibly determine if they could go back to work/school because they could have possible immunity. IgG positive tests could allow self-isolation measures to end because it indicates that patients are no longer in the state of infection where they can be contagious to others. However, according to this article, this test is not used to determine whether or not the patient is currently infected, it is used mainly to detect if the patient has been exposed to the coronavirus or not. Tests that measure antibody levels could help us better understand when we could go back to normal life without making the number of infections spike up.
Lucero Rocha MCRO 251 