health

Hopes grow for antibody tests, but experts urge caution

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By Femke COLBORNE

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© 2020 AFP

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As mentioned in the article, there are many reasons why antibody tests should be used with a lot of care, the two main reasons are

1.- a positive result not necessarily means the person is immune.

2.- a negative result not necessarily means the person is not immune, or that he has not been infected.

The principal use for the tests is to try and have a glimpse of how many people have been infected and did not had any symptoms, this will help make very important decisions about how to deal with the pandemic in the near future. The flaws in the tests can be dealt with statistical methods after analyzing hundreds or thousands of results.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/27/world/europe/coronavirus-vaccine-update-oxford.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_200428&instance_id=17994&nl=todaysheadlines&regi_id=49359514&segment_id=26110&user_id=9c748ac6c3d1ed95a04f0beb1d0eb89b

On a related matter, the NYT reported that a group at Oxford has developed a vaccine which has worked on Macaque monkeys. They were working on a vaccine for a coronavirus related to Covid-19, before the pandemic struck, and have since repurposed it for Covid-19. The hope is that it will shorten the race for a vaccine by a lot.

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