Scientific research

Detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies via surrogate virus neutralization tests with less stringent conditions in the sera of multiple species got testified

Researchers at HKU SPH collaborated with CUHK and the Hospital Authority to evaluate the performance of surrogate neutralization assays (sVNT) for SARS-CoV-2 done without the required biosafety containment across human, canine, cat and hamster sera. They compared the performance of sVNT with the traditional 90% plaque reduction neutralization tests, and found that sVNT performed well in terms of both sensitivity and specificity. They also checked and confirmed the lack of cross reactivity between SARS-CoV-2 and most of other coronaviruses using these two methods.

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DOI: 10.1128/JCM.02504-20

# disease severity and immunity