Corona antibody test “False positive” is likely to be included and the number of infected people cannot be estimated. May 15, 11:47
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has announced the results of blood tests for 1,000 people regarding antibody tests to check if they have been infected with the new coronavirus. Since the purpose is to confirm the performance of the test kit, and the number of infected persons cannot be estimated from these results, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare plans to carry out an antibody test for 10,000 people again.
The antibody test is a test for the presence or absence of antibodies to the new coronavirus contained in blood, and it can be seen if the patient has been infected in the past. Therefore, a large-scale analysis will analyze how many percent of the population will be infected. It is said that it can be estimated.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, in order to confirm the performance of multiple test kits toward the early implementation of antibody tests, tested the blood donation samples of the Japanese Red Cross Society in Tokyo and the six prefectures of Tohoku last month for 1,000 people in total. The we.
The percentage of positives varies depending on the kit, but the maximum was 0.6% in Tokyo and 0.4% in Tohoku.
However, in order to compare it with that before the spread of the new coronavirus, we also examined the preserved blood donation at Kanto Koshinetsu early last year, and it was found that up to 0.4% was positive.
Because of this, it is highly possible that none of the test results include "false positives" that are positive even though they are not infected, and it is impossible to estimate the number of infected people.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare says that it is necessary to carry out a large-scale test to check not only whether it is positive or negative but also the amount of antibody, etc., so the policy is to carry out an antibody test for 10,000 people as early as next month.