August 13, 2020

REACT-2 study on COVID-19 home antibody test surveillance

The REACT-2 programme led by scientists at Imperial College London is a series of studies assessing a number of antibody tests for accuracy and ease of use at home, and also using home antibody tests to estimate how many people in England have already had been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Over 100,000 randomly selected adults tested themselves at home using a finger prick test between 20th June and 13th July to check if they have antibodies, and the results were published this morning (13th August).  Please note some are published journal papers and some are preprints which have not yet been through peer-review.

Journalists dialled in to this virtual press briefing to hear from the scientists who lead this project and ask questions of them.

Speakers included:

Prof Paul Elliott, Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine, Imperial College London

Prof Graham Cooke, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London

Prof Helen Ward, Professor of Public Health, Imperial College London

An SMC roundup of comments accompanied this briefing.