Yorkshire to play key role in first national antibody surveillance programme
The government has launched a national Covid-19 surveillance programme which will make home antibody tests available for up to 8,000 people per day, with the aim of improving understanding of the protection provided by antibodies generated following the Covid-19 infection and vaccination.
The national response includes 16 organisations which have been categorised for GDPR purposes data processors which will enable the delivery of the programme. This list includes a number of Yorkshire organisations including The National Pathology Exchange (NPEx) which is hosted by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust. According to the the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), the exchange will receive results from labs and link results to test registration details and flow results data to NHS organisations and to GP records via the Rawdon-based medtech firms EMIS’s Keystone product.
The Leeds headquartered NHS Digital, one of recipients of the data from the National Pathology Exchange, will also collect results on behalf of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but it will also match patients to results if NPex can’t achieve it, provide information for organisations in response to Covid-19 and the results data to the devolved administrations.
Announcing the new programme yesterday, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Sajid Javid said: ”Our new national antibody testing will be quick and easy to take part in, and by doing so you’ll be helping strengthen our understanding of Covid-19 as we cautiously return to a more normal life.
“I’m proud to see all parts of the UK uniting around this new initiative and working together to arm ourselves with even more valuable insights into how Covid-19 vaccines are protecting people up and down the UK.”
The chief executive of the UK National Health Security Agency Dr Jenny Harries added: “We are rolling out antibody testing across the UK to gain vital data into the impact of our vaccination programme and on immune responses to different variants of COVID-19.
“This innovative programme is only possible thanks to the thousands of people who continue to help with studies on vaccine and treatment effectiveness each week.”
Alongside the announcement of the programme York-based Abingdon Health which develops and manufactures high quality rapid tests has launched its BioSURE Covid-19 antibody self test.
Chris Yates, CEO, Abingdon Health
Manufactured at Abingdon’s facilities in York and Doncaster Chris Yates CEO of Abingdon noted that it will complement the firm’s existing lateral flow test, AbC-10.
He said: “We are delighted that BioSure have launched their product and equally happy to be their manufacturing partner. For individuals to be able to monitor their own antibody status at home is a great step in the management of COVID-19. Our own AbC-19 assay will complement this product and we expect the AbC-19 to gain additional utility in semi-quantitative format as recently announced. BioSure also distributes our AbC-19 test which is CE marked for professional use.
“This initiative allows us to build on our long-term collaboration with the BioSure team for whom we manufacture their HIV self-test in the same format as this new test. We are committed to supporting the deployment of these much-needed lateral flow tests to the UK and international markets. This is the first of several products we have previously noted to be going through the technical transfer process with others for COVID antigen and non-COVID applications to follow and which we expect to contribute to contract manufacturing revenue growth.”
