SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing in Health Care Workers: A Comparison of the Clinical Performance of Three Commercially Available Antibody Assays
Niamh Allen, Melissa Brady, Antonio Isidro Carrión Martín, Lisa Domegan, Cathal Walsh, Elaine Houlihan, Colm Kerr, Lorraine Doherty, Joanne King, Martina Doheny, D. Griffin, Maria Molloy, Jean Dunne, Vivion Crowley, Philip Holmes, Evan Keogh, Sean X. Naughton, Martina Kelly, Fiona O’Rourke, Yvonne Lynagh, Brendan Crowley, Cillian De Gascun, Paul Holder, Colm Bergin, Catherine Fleming, Una Ní Riain, Niall Conlon
Abstract
As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, retained sensitivity over time is an important quality in an antibody assay that is to be used for the purpose of population seroprevalence studies. There is a relative paucity of published literature in this field to help guide public health specialists when planning seroprevalence studies. In this study, we compared results of 5,788 health care worker blood samples tested by using two assays (Roche and Elecsys, anti-nucleocapsid antibody) and by testing a subset on a third assay (Wantai enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay [ELISA] anti-spike antibody). We found significant differences in the performance of these assays, especially with distance in time from PCR-confirmed COVID-19 infection, and we feel these results may significantly impact the choice of assay for others conducting similar studies.