Authorities have sought public cooperation in the antibody testing under the Covid-19 seroprevalence study initiated by the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

During Saturday night’s press briefing, spokesperson at the Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC), Dr. Nazla Rafeeq revealed that healthcare officials have been receiving support from the public since the study initiated on Thursday, however, more support is required in order to complete the study as quickly as possible.

The center’s spokesperson added that healthcare workers began the study with the testing of the under-18 age group, comprising mostly of students. Currently, antibody testing is being conducted on those aged between 18 – 34

The World Health Organization (WHO)’s methodology will be followed during the program and the survey to identify seroprevalence individuals will be divided into four age groups. This includes under 18-years of age, those aged between 18 – 34, the 35 – 59 age group and those over 60-years of age.

Healthcare workers will be collecting samples from about 4,098 individuals under the study and testing will be conducted on randomly selected individuals who will be notified an address and time to provide samples, via text message.

Highlighting that this is not Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing, Dr. Nazla revealed that antibody testing will be done through collecting blood samples instead of nasal swab samples.

Test results will be forwarded to individuals through text and those who test positive will not be required to go into quarantine or isolation.

Positive test results mean that the individual had been exposed to the virus previously or had tested positive for the virus whereas negative results indicate that the person is not immune to the virus or has never been infected with the virus.

The biggest purpose of the study is to determine the percentage of the community that has been exposed to the virus which will in turn allow authorities to identify the rate of Covid-19 transmission and explore ways through which their procedures and measures may be enhanced.

The antibody testing is being conducted in collaboration with the Maldives National University and they have been testing those who have been randomly selected, from October 22.

The testing will be carried out at the MNU Central and Faculty of Health Sciences through November 12, from 4pm to 7pm.

Antibody testing was also conducted by ADK Hospital earlier. They discovered antibodies from 125 frontline workers out of the 3,004 tests conducted.