National Reference Laboratory, NRL, part of Mubadala Healthcare network, announced the release of the new-iteration COVID-19 antibody test kits, known as serology test kits, to the UAE market as part of its drive to support the nation’s readiness to fight pandemics, as many organizations are considering how to safely move back to the job.
While acknowledging that Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, RT-PCR, testing remains the gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis, National Reference Laboratory experts emphasize the advantages of their new serology test kits, noting that these complementary antibody tests offer valuable knowledge for treating the disease and evaluating its dissemination, as well as possible human resource consequences.
Dr. Laila Abdel Warmth, Deputy CEO and Chief Technical Officer of National Reference Laboratory is swift to note that the current experiments are not expected to replace conventional RT-PCR experiments, but instead supplement them.
While research is ongoing on sensitive high-risk facilities such as childcare and home nursing and other industries characterized by large congregations, these study results that allow human resources to decide in an educated manner whether or not staff should be employed on the basis of whether or not they have COVID-19 antibodies and, thus, possible defence against infection.
National Reference Laboratory efforts
Dr. Abdel Wareth cautioned people of a false sense of confidence from the effects of successful antibody testing. Whilst anyone should take these tests to determine that they have been exposed to the virus and created antibodies, this does not mean that they will be disregarding defence, more work on the antibodies’ protective mechanism is needed.”
Abdul Hamid Oubeisi, CEO of Mubadala Healthcare provider National Reference Laboratory. He explained that potential uses of the serology tests will become more critical in time. “The significance will grow as we develop more research results on the defensive features of the antibodies. As well as the necessary effectiveness and reliability of this defence. However, health authorities and healthcare professionals work together. To create a detailed image of the existence and distribution of the disease. We agree that serological testing will be essential in the management of the disease.
The National Reference Laboratory launched the new test aligns of widening our tool range. To meet policy and society’s needs in recognizing and reducing COVID-19 impacts. Since the start of the epidemic, we have significantly expanded our RT-PCR monitoring capability. Also, we introduced advanced accelerated processing equipment and technology development methods.
National Reference Laboratory Experiments
Oubeisi states that NRL reviewed some of the new serology experiments and picked its test kit based on its high degree of sensitivity and precision. This is underlining the accuracy of the test. The selected kit has a specificity of more than 99.5 percent. National Reference Laboratory has the ability and resources to turn out results in a few hours.
Food and Drug Administration, FDA, produced versions recently that provide valuable information to health agencies, hospitals and pharmacies.
National Reference Laboratory experts serology results provide useful insights into clinical treatment settings such as supporting the diagnosis of COVID-19 disease in patients presenting late after nine to 14 days of illness. In children with the multisystem inflammatory syndrome; and in identifying appropriate donors for convalescent plasma therapy. More generally, the information from serology testing can also be useful to evaluate this pandemic’s epidemiology. And help policymakers and health agencies establish preventive measures and reduce the disease ‘s effect.
