Getting Antibody test is an unnecessary new normal, experts say

Hyderabad: As Covid jab takers are rushing to take Antibodies tests, experts from Hyderabad say that these commercial tests are not necessary if you are healthy. "All these unnecessary promotions for Antibiotics tests need to be stopped," say doctors.

"Going for Rs 800 Antibody test after vaccination is just your commercial loss as the vaccination power will already last for at least 4 months. There are also a few diagnostic centers who try to insist vaccinated people to take Antibody tests, but it's not necessary if you are healthy and not infected," said Dr Vijayender, Telangana Doctor Federation.

Unaware of the fact, that antibodies will be sufficient enough in our body after vaccination, P Sushil, the person taking the antibodies test at the Apollo diagnostic center said "After I got vaccinated, I went for an antibody test as one of my friends suggested that we can check our antibodies which is helpful to prevent the infection as I am also a sugar patient."

Highlighting about the unnecessary promotions of Covid antibody tests, Dr J Anish Anand, Consultant Internal Medicine,Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills, said, "Definitely some amount of unnecessary promotion of the antibody test is being done in the city and we suggest people not to fall prey for such things unnecessarily without doctors' consultancy."

"Antibody test for Covid can be done only in certain situations where to know the Sero prevalence of past Covid infection in the community or to know whether if a person or a child had Covid previously especially where the diagnosis of the patient is uncertain for example a child who may present to ER in a sick State after an initial asymptomatic Covid infection. Otherwise Covid antibody tests are not mandatory," he added.

Explaining how Diagnostics centers are suggesting to take Antibiotics tests for people after vaccination, Dr Md Iqbal Jaweed said, "They raise a curiosity among people regarding their immunity power and they suggest to take antibody tests to know how immune they are to this virus and whether they are protected or not even after vaccination. And they describe several antibody tests available in the Market that can range from Rs 800 to Rs 1600."

Briefing in detail about the antibody tests Dr Saranya Narayanan, Chief Microbiologist, Neuberg Diagnostics said,"The major one which is the total antibody test, IGD Antibody test ( This can be taken after 14 days of inspection and remains for 7 months ), The are other tests individually to know IGG, IGA and IGM. The other popular one is S1 antibody test for Rs 900 which is specifically targeted for spike protein virus. The other costly one is Neutralising Antibodies in spikes protein test for Rs 1600 which need to be taken 4 weeks after second dose of vaccine."

What is Antibody test?

Antibody test is done to know whether a person had a recent or past infection. It is also done to know whether a person has been vaccinated or has had an antibody response from the body towards the vaccination. There are two types of antibodies: T cells and B cells. T cells are mostly seen in Covid. But the cells are in lymph nodes of the human body and not in the blood. Hence, it is difficult to remove lymph nodes to check the T cell. So the diagnostic centers are generally doing B cells antiviral wp which is not reliable.

T cell tests are being done in countries like the U.S. currently, it is unavailable in india. Our diagnostic centers anti bodies will give us a picture but not accurate enough to bank on. Even though the government has given clear instructions not to go for antibody tests, people are going for such tests out of anxiety. The government hospitals are not allowing citizens for antibody tests, explained Dr Mallikarjun, Pathologist, King Koti Hospital.