A new clinical blood test will start being conducted at the UW Medicine Virology Lab, beginning next week, to check people for past infection with SARS-CoV-2.

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The test looks for the presence of an antibody, called IGg, which people produce in fending off the pandemic coronavirus.  The antibody first appears several days or longer after a person contracts the virus, even in those who never had symptoms or had just mild to moderate respiratory illness.

“There are people who say, for example, ‘I was pretty sick back in February. Could I have had COVID-19 back then?’ said Dr. Keith Jerome, professor of laboratory medicine at the UW School of Medicine.  Nasal swabbing screens for a present infection, but can’t indicate whether someone had the infection in the past and recovered. The antibody blood test can. The test is done on a venous blood draw. While it is not a rapid finger-prick test, once the specimen arrives at lab it can be analyzed promptly.