Authors' objectives: The general objective of this assessment was to provide a reliable synthesis of the available evidence on several pressing health policy questions related to screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of the disease’s course. The specific research questions were: Whether and with which testing strategies, antibody tests can be reliably used for early detection of new asymptomatic cases of SARS-CoV-2 acute infection and for diagnosis in patients presenting symptoms suggestive of SARS-CoV-2 infection. H​ow antibody tests can be used for measuring seroprevalence in communities; ruling out further risk of transmission in recovered patients and assessing protective immunity in subjects with past and resolved SARS-CoV-2 infection. This assessment has been carried out in just over five weeks and published on the 23rd of June 2020. Owing to the urgency of the situation, both the present assessment and the included primary studies were performed very rapidly. As a result of the quality and limited number of eligible studies, the present assessment confirms the persistence of uncertainty on the role of antibody tests in SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis and management. Since many studies are still ongoing and their results expected in the near future, this assessment will be updated when evidence suitable to reduce this uncertainty will be available.​

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: https://eunethta.eu/rcr-ot-01/

Year Published: 2020

URL for published report: https://eunethta.eu/rcr-ot-01/

Requestor: HTA agencies

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Rapid Review

Organisation Name: European Network for Health Technology Assessment

Contact Email: eunethta@zinl.nl

Copyright: CC-BY-NC: You may copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify and use the EUnetHTA work for any purpose other than commercially unless you get your permission first.