Pakistan to conduct Covid-19 anti-body tests for community screening

KARACHI: Laboratory testing for Covid-19 serology trials has been prepared according to a notification issued by the National Institute for Health.

Anti-body testing would be done for community screening and research purposes.

Tests can also be conducted to see the evidence of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in individual cases whereas tests may be used for seroepidemiological or seroprevalence studies to inform public health measures at a community level.

Furthermore, the tests can also be conducted for convalescent plasma transfusion. Laboratory serology tests may be considered as supplementary tests to RT-PCR based testing, the notification added.

The notification added that regulatory considerations such as in-vitro diagnostics with at least one of the following recommendations are applicable for all the facilities that undertake serological testing

-EU regulatory statues such as CE marked

- FDA approved/notified.