Lviv launches high accuracy antibody testing, using ELISA method

The first batch of ELISA tests are being provided to paramedics at the city's medical emergency hospital.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi says the city's laboratories have started to provide the first highly accurate testing to detect coronavirus antibodies.

"Lviv has begun to do high accuracy antibody tests for coronavirus. The first ELISA tests (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) are being provided for paramedics of the medical emergency hospital. This type of testing allows detecting the presence of antibodies in a human body and finding out if a person had already contracted a coronavirus. Devices for such studies are available in laboratories of city hospitals and outpatient clinics. Therefore, this will significantly increase the mass testing in Lviv," he wrote on Facebook on May 25.

Sadovyi noted that the testing campaign does not replace tests done with the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This is rather an additional opportunity to identify COVID-19 patients and, most importantly, those who have already been infected with coronavirus.

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's Health Ministry on May 20 issued an order to introduce laboratory testing for coronavirus with the use of enzyme immunoassay method.