Antibody testing for COVID-19
As of Monday, April 27, Quest will be offering antibody testing to see if you have had the coronavirus infection, COVID-19. This is a test that can only be useful during and after the recovery phase of the illness, not during the illness.
Who qualifies for testing:
- those who have had an illness consistent with COVID-19 that occurred before nasal swab testing was available
- those who have recovered from an illness consistent with COVID-19 but did not get tested
- those who tested negative with the nasal swab test and had an illness consistent with COVID-19
- those with “significant exposure” who did not get ill within 2 weeks of their “significant exposure”. This category involves household members of individuals with COVID-19 or significant exposure at work or other places where proximity to another person who developed the illness was experienced
Who this is not for:
- people who have not had any illness in the last four months consistent with COVID-19
- those who have no known exposure to someone ill with COVID-19 or who subsequently developed COVID-19
A contact at Quest said they are happy to have people come by for the testing at any of their draw stations. Their protocol dictates:
- you must be be at least 10 days from your last fever over 100,
- you must wear a mask, and
- they need an order from us or your PCP.
We will be also available for blood draws for this testing starting Monday. We will not be ordering any tests before Monday, but you may leave a message over the weekend. We will start processing orders and appointments for blood draws starting Monday morning.
Demand is anticipated to be very high, so it may take days to weeks to begin to get everyone tested who thinks they may have had COVID-19 in the past four months.
Although the results from studies on plasma donation are still unknown, if you test positive by antibody testing, please consider donating plasma for use in the critically ill.
The beginning of the end for the hydrochloroquine story?
A VA study released late this week, showed that taking hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine and azithromycin did not prevent people from needing ventilator support if they became critically ill. Painfully the risk of dying was actually higher in the folks who had taken hydroxychloroquine for their illness.
Dr. Gipson
What about French study of over 1000 patients showing opposite results. Is there a difference when meds are first given?
I am unaware of a large French study showing otherwise. Please provide a reference. One of the original studies was one from France that only involved about 50 people and did not have a control group of untreated individuals. This VA report compares similarly ill individuals and compared two groups, one who got the drugs and the other didn’t.
The VA finding also reflects a Brazilian study that showed more deaths in the hydochloroquine/azithromycin treated group.
So now two significant pieces of information against using hydrochloroquine.
Sent you a link. Interesting criticism of VA study. Ties into my question as to stage of infection medication administered. Also underlying illnesses seem to make a difference.
Understand French study doesn’t have control group. From pic of the doc he looks a bit dodgy as the brits would say.
Here’s some information about the so-called “French study”:
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/covid-19-drug-research-another-french-study-shows-no-evidence-of-clinical-efficacy-of-hydroxychloroquine-in-covid-19-patients
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/04/23/french-doctor-didier-raoult-cites-flaws-scientific-misconduct-in-recent-va-study-on-hydroxychloroquine/
While not a medical journal, interesting enough to follow up.
“While not a medical journal, interesting enough to follow up.”
Actually that study was peer-reviewed. Here are some comments with references to the Raoult publication:
However upon closely analyzing the study, many international and French researchers found that the study was full of fraudulent data and a deceptive manner of conducting a research. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.31.20048777v1 and https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.22.20040949v1
A closer look at the researcher also revealed that he had been banned from numerous medical journals in the US in the past for fraudulent behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Raoult
A growing number of more thoughtfully-prepared studies with hydrochloroquine are coming out showing NO BENEFIT, and if anything perhaps some harm.
The information referenced was published on Redstate.com. That is not a site held in high regard for curating and publishing credible and critical medical information, but instead position and opinion articles.