Serological Determinants of COVID-19

Abstract

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection spreaded rapidly worldwide, as far as it has become a global pandemic. Therefore, the introduction of serological tests useful for the determination of IgM and IgG antibodies, it has become the main diagnostic tool, useful for tracking the spread of the virus and consequently its containment. In our study we compared point of care test (POCT) lateral flow immunoassay (FIA) vs automated chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA), in order to assess their specificity and sensibility against COVID-19 antibodies detection. Results: We find that different specificities and sensitivities for IgG and IgM tests. Notably IgM POCT FIA method vs CLIA method (gold standard) has a low sensitivity (0.526), while POCT FIA method vs CLIA method (gold standard) test has a much higher sensitivity (0.937); further, with respect of IgG, FIA and CLIA could arguably provide the same information. Conclusions: FIA method could be helpful in assessing in short time, the possible contagiousness of subjects that for work reasons cannot guarantee “social distancing”.