With the rate of asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 so high, many people may be wondering if they were infected with the virus at some point.
The FDA has now approved an at-home antibody test that can help people answer that question.
Vacaville-based clinical laboratory testing company Symbiotica, Inc. has received an emergency use authorization from the FDA for its at-home test that requires just a few drops of blood.
“That allows people not to have to go out of their house during COVID or any other time to go to their doctor and it doesn’t require people to go to a laboratory and go to a phlebotomist and have a blood draw,” said Susan Zneimer, CEO and laboratory director at Symbiotica.
“You don’t need a lot of blood for a single test of this technology,” she explained. “You can take, let’s say, two to three drops and it allows you to do a few tests… you don’t need five to 10 milliliters.”
That means that patients can draw their own blood sample at home with just a finger prick.
The blood is collected on a card and patients send in the dry blood sample to Symbiotica’s lab.
“We have a paper cutter that will cut the dry blood spot out and we put it in a machine. And the machine will do its thing, run through a bunch of chemicals that pops out a result based on what’s present inside the blood. So the blood is best when it’s dry because it stays stable for enough time for us to run that test,” Zneimer explained.
This process cannot detect the virus itself, as the virus does not live in the blood the way antibodies do.
But Zneimer says the test can give people some certainty about whether or not they have protection from the virus. For people who have been vaccinated, it can also provide some clues as to how long the protection from the vaccine lasts.
You can order the test directly from their website, SymbioticaInc.com.
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