Sarah Lomas, CEO and President of REVIV Global, a British company specialised in genetics, warned the Government is ignoring key developments in the testing industry that could help with the ramping up of coronavirus antibody tests in the UK.

Speaking to Express.co.uk, Ms Lomas, who claimed to have contacted the Government with no success, said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for the UK Government is the only one in the world to have raised the bar of the accuracy of antibody tests, preventing companies to help during the crisis.

She warned: “Manufacturers were granted emergency MHRA approval. They then submitted tests to the UK Government and the UK Government testing team were not happy with the accuracy.

“The poor tests have an accuracy of around 85 percent, these are around 85 percent false positives.

“I would say that of all the tests we have tested, the very front tests have an accuracy of about 97 percent.

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“But the Government has now raised a specification to manufactures globally of what their expectations are and what the requirements would be for them to purchase supply.

“And we are the only government in the world that is asking for 98 percent accuracy.

“And at the moment, there is not a test out there that has 98 percent accuracy.”

The antibody tests, using decades-old ELISA technology, do not always pick up early-stage infections but show whether a person had the virus in the past, even if the person was asymptomatic.

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In comparison, the so-called RT-PCR-technology swab tests used at drive-through stations and clinics across the country determine whether a person has the virus at that moment by looking for it in nose or throat secretions.

Both tests are seen as critical in the coronavirus fight, but antibody tests are seen as a relatively cheap, fast means to sort populations into risk groups and measure virus spread.

Questions remain about how long coronavirus immunity levels last and whether people who have antibodies could still be contagious, according to some infectious disease specialists.

Echoing Ms Lomas’ concerns, Dr Liam Fox, former Secretary of State for International Trade, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the Government’s new specification requirement for antibody tests was a matter of concerns.

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Dr Fox said: “One of the areas that I think many of us are disappointed with is the fact that the antibody test, rather than the antigen testing, is getting a long time to get licensed.

“They’re being used more extensively overseas and there’s a big debate here about whether we should be aiming for the perfect and very high level of sensitivity and specificity in tests, or whether we’re willing to accept something a little less perfect in order to get the system moving more quickly.

“That’s a debate and an issue that MPs will want to ask about when the House of Commons comes back.”

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