By David Opinko

Serology Testing

Province investing $10-million into serology testing & studies for COVID-19

Jun 23, 2020 | 4:02 PM

The Government of Alberta has announced a significant investment that will help to better understand COVID-19 and what it means for those who contract it.

Health Minister Tyler Shandro says the provincial government will be investing $10-million into conducting an unspecified number of serology tests.

“It detects the presence of antibodies in a person’s blood, which can show us if they’ve been exposed to COVID-19 in the past. That shows us more about how the virus is spreading and how to best contain it.”

He adds that, since COVID-19 is still so new, there is still a lot we do not know about it.

“We need to know how much immunity people have after they’ve been infected, if they can get infected again, etc. Serology testing will help us find out and contribute to the global evidence, which will help all jurisdictions moving forward.”

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Shandro clarifies that serology tests are different than throat swab tests, which are used to identify patients who are currently afflicted by the virus.

The government is also funding four voluntary public health studies that the Health Minister says will allow researchers to closely monitor and test a sample of Albertans.

Two of the studies will examine antibodies in children in Calgary and Edmonton.

A third will regularly test Albertans over the age of 45.

The final study will anonymously test random samples of blood that were collected for other purposes.

“Together, these four studies will give us a lot more information about how the virus is spreading.”