nCoV: Serological detection of past SARS-CoV-2 infection by non-invasive sampling for field epidemiology and quantitative antibody detection

保护易感人群免受新型中国冠状病毒输入的主要方法是在入境时隔离有感染风险的个人。如果一个人有胸部感染的症状，可以通过对病毒的特定测试来诊断或排除冠状病毒。限制是，有些人可能没有症状，没有进行测试，事实上，有些人可能已经感染并从病毒中恢复到测试时。目前，我们还没有特异性的血清学方法来检测过去感染SARS-CoV-2，这可能是重要的，在确定意外的感染风险。在实践中，这一关键的缺乏可能意味着病毒感染的持续传播可能仍然未被发现。该工作方案将开发诊断测试方法，通过从口腔中采集液体样本并进行抗体测试，可以很容易地取得样本。另一个优点是，这可以允许筛选从感染中恢复的潜在供体，其血液含有高水平的抗体，这可能适合于在没有公认的有效抗病毒剂用于患者的时候治疗患有严重疾病的患者。

The principal method protecting susceptible populations from the importation of the novel Chinese coronavirus is to quarantine individuals at risk of the infection when they enter the country. If a person has symptoms of a chest infection it may be possible to diagnose or exclude coronavirus by a specific test for the virus. The limitation is that some people may have no symptoms and not be tested and indeed some may have been infected and recovered from the virus by the time of this testing. At present we have no specific serological method of detecting past infection with SARS-CoV-2 which may be important in defining unexpected infection risks. In practice this crucial lack can mean that ongoing transmission of virus infection may remain undetected. This programme of work will develop diagnostic tests a way in which samples can easily be taken by sampling fluid from the mouth and tested for antibody. An additional advantage is that this can allow screening of potential donors recovered from infection whose blood contain high levels of antibody which may be appropriate for treating patients with severe disease at a time that there are no recognised effective antiviral agents for patients.