Government 'not in a position' to roll out breakthrough coronavirus antibody test yet, health minister Edward Argar says

The Government is not yet in a position to roll out the new antibody tests to the public, health minister Edward Argar said.

Public Health England has approved the blood test, developed by Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, to determine whether people have already been infected with Covid-19.

The test could help pave the way for the lockdown being eased because people could go back to work confident they were not likely to get it again.

But speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, Mr Argar said the UK will have to wait before the tests are rolled out to frontline workers and then the wider public.

He said: “It has only just got the green light. Obviously we will have had kits to test, but we are not in a position at this point to give these tests out.”

Health Minister Edward Argar speaks to BBC Breakfast
BBC Breakfast

He added: “So we’re not in a position yet to roll it out to the public and have those tests ready to go.”

The health minister said the Government wants to roll out the new antibody test to frontline workers first.

Speaking to the broadcaster, Mr Argar said: “We’re in discussion at the moment with Roche on this.

An antibody test has been approved by PHE (file photo)
REUTERS

“It’s only just gone through the Public Health England assessment as being reliable, as doing the job, and therefore we are having those discussions.

“But we are keen to get as many as quickly as we can and get them out, primarily to the front line first, the NHS, social care and then more widely.

“Because this really will be – as the Prime Minister said – this has the potential to be a game-changer.”

Mr Argar later said the Government still needs to “make available” Covid-19 testing capacity so all care home residents and staff can get tested.

"There is still some capacity there that we need to put in… make available, I should say, to care homes to make sure everyone can access it quickly,” he said.

He added: “To make sure they get their results back quickly so they know when they have someone who didn’t test negative – that’s fine.

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“Or when they have someone who has tested positive, they know to use that… if they are accepting a discharge back to the care home, they know to put in place those isolation rules and those isolation procedures.”

Scientists said the Roche test has been found to be 100 per cent accurate following an evaluation at the Porton Down facility last week.

Public Health England's (PHE) findings were hailed as a "very positive development" in combating the coroanvirus outbreak.

Professor John Newton, national coordinator of the UK Coronavirus Testing Programme, said: "We were confident that good quality antibody tests would become available when they were needed.

"Last week, scientific experts at PHE Porton Down carried out an independent evaluation of the new Roche Sars-CoV-2 serology assay in record time, concluding that it is a highly specific assay with specificity of 100 per cent.

"This is a very positive development because such a highly specific antibody test is a very reliable marker of past infection.

"This in turn may indicate some immunity to future infection although the extent to which the presence of anti-bodies indicates immunity remains unclear."

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