Freestyle Libre manufacturers Abbott to release covid19 test

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This has just received approval by the FDA, but I can’t find any reference to whether it will be rolled out anywhere else besides the USA.
 
Robin said:
This has just received approval by the FDA, but I can’t find any reference to whether it will be rolled out anywhere else besides the USA.
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Trump will have got them to only supply USA I bet, sorry he has been banging about them in his rambles for a week or so. Let's hope it works otherwise they will be his next enemy.
 
Hope this becomes more widely available.
 
Abbott covid19 home antibody test now available in Superdrug £69

Nobody in the entire world to this day (20.05.2020) has yet confirmed if antibodies gives long or short term immunity from covid19, which is absolutely crucial.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Superdrug starts selling a coronavirus antibody test for £69

The test is produced by Abbott, which was the second antibody test approved by ministers after Roche. Blood samples have to be posted to a laboratory, therefore it isn't a 'DIY' test.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
Antibody tests can’t tell you whether you have the illness, which most people don’t realise. Antibodies aren’t detectable until a couple of weeks after infection. Unless you are dead, of course.
 
mikeyB said:
Antibody tests can’t tell you whether you have the illness, which most people don’t realise. Antibodies aren’t detectable until a couple of weeks after infection. Unless you are dead, of course.
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Mike,

I was watching bbc news tonight. They (world leaders, politicians) seem to be really playing down the potential for having immunity and seem to making no attempt show that they are making any efforts to determine if people do have immunity after having covid19. Surely, research and studies into the antibody immunity is so, so important.

It seems that vaccine development (with big profits to be made) is taking priority.
 
Amity Island said:
I was watching bbc news tonight. They (world leaders, politicians) seem to be really playing down the potential for having immunity and seem to making no attempt show that they are making any efforts to determine if people do have immunity after having covid19. Surely, research and studies into the antibody immunity is so, so important.

It seems that vaccine development (with big profits to be made) is taking priority.
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I think we can be sure researchers are really interested in what the various kinds of antibody mean for immunity and are doing whatever they can to explore that. There's the problem that this thing is new, so we can't know whether the antibodies will last for more than a couple of months (or whenever we first detected antibodies) and also presumably there are ethical problems in some of the things an evil researcher might want to do (for example take a few thousand people, some with antibodies and some without, and throw them into a situation with infected people to see what happens).

Your note about vaccines seems silly. Effective vaccines would be a really good way out of this, and while the opportunity to sell a very large number of doses (perhaps every year) would be of value, it's probably not nearly as profitable as a range of treatment options (even though those would only be used by some people). I don't think vaccines are a particularly profitable part of pharmaceutical companies; maybe this one will be an exception but I doubt it.
 
Don’t vaccines basically consist of dead or weakened viruses, to stimulate your body to become immune by generating its own antibodies? Therefore if people don't become immune after getting Covid-19 then a vaccine won’t work either?
 
Sally71 said:
Don’t vaccines basically consist of dead or weakened viruses, to stimulate your body to become immune by generating its own antibodies? Therefore if people don't become immune after getting Covid-19 then a vaccine won’t work either?
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I believe some of the vaccines being worked on are not these traditional type of vaccines.
 
Bruce Stephens said:
Your note about vaccines seems silly.
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"It seems that vaccine development (with big profits to be made) is taking priority".

Bruce, given there is no money to be made from natural immunity, knowing how business works, my note about vaccines seems very realistic.
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I think we can be sure researchers are really interested in what the various kinds of antibody mean for immunity and are doing whatever they can to explore that. There's the problem that this thing is new, so we can't know whether the antibodies will last for more than a couple of months (or whenever we first detected antibodies) and also presumably there are ethical problems in some of the things an evil researcher might want to do (for example take a few thousand people, some with antibodies and some without, and throw them into a situation with infected people to see what happens).

Your note about vaccines seems silly. Effective vaccines would be a really good way out of this, and while the opportunity to sell a very large number of doses (perhaps every year) would be of value, it's probably not nearly as profitable as a range of treatment options (even though those would only be used by some people). I don't think vaccines are a particularly profitable part of pharmaceutical companies; maybe this one will be an exception but I doubt it.
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Hi Bruce,
As you know the government have just announced they will be testing all nhs staff for anitbodies.
If they don't know whether immunity is gained, why are the testing? What benefit is there to testing?
Any ideas what their aim is?
 
Amity Island said:
As you know the government have just announced they will be testing all nhs staff for anitbodies.
If they don't know whether immunity is gained, why are the testing? What benefit is there to testing?
Any ideas what their aim is?
Click to expand...

I think everyone thinks we probably get immunity (of some strengths, for some lengths of time) and that antibodies are an indication of that. The uncertainty is (likely) about how much all this varies between people (and presumably how the variation might be measured in someone).

Even if the antibodies are just an indication of the past (and mean nothing about immunity) that would still be interesting information.
 
Nobody has ever developed a vaccine against coronaviruses, because most coronaviruses are essentially harmless to humans, just causing colds. It’s completely different from making a flu vaccine - as soon as you find the genome, you tweak known vaccines.

So there are three things you don’t know - is it safe, does it work, and for how long does it work. It’s the last bit that makes it worthwhile. If it’s less then 3 months, it’s not worth the bother.
 
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