• Military
• WMD
• Intelligence

• Security Menu                     

• Systems
• Industry
• Operations
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Space

Low rates of COVID-19 exposure found in Changhua antibody study

ROC Central News Agency

08/27/2020 05:28 PM

Taipei, Aug. 27 (CNA) A testing program for COVID-19 antibodies carried out by Changhua County has found low rates of exposure among high-risk population groups, in a significant validation of Taiwan's efforts to control the disease.

The study, which was conducted by National Taiwan University's (NTU) College of Public Health, was released at a press conference on Thursday with the apparent backing of the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), which had until recently opposed it.

The study tested for neutralizing antibodies the body produces following exposure to COVID-19 and was intended to offer a picture of how prevalent the disease was during its peak in Taiwan in February and March, said Changhua Public Health Bureau Director Yeh Yen-po (葉彥伯).

From June 11 through Aug. 12, researchers took samples from 4,841 subjects with a higher risk of COVID-19 exposure, including the contacts of confirmed cases and people in home quarantine after returning from abroad, as well as healthcare workers and other epidemic prevention staff, Yeh said.

Neutralizing antibodies for COVID-19 were found in only four of the test subjects, equating to a positive rate of 8.3 per 10,000 people, he said, adding that such a low rate of exposure in a high-risk population was "extremely good news."

In a separate part of the study, researchers tested 18 people who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 between January and April and found that all of them still had neutralizing antibodies that were likely to provide immunity, according to Yeh.

The findings on post-infection immune responses can offer an important reference to vaccine developers as they conduct clinical trials, said NTU public health professor Chen Hsiu-hsi (陳秀熙).

The study's release came after the research team leaders postponed a scheduled announcement on Monday, which they attributed to a lack of time to complete "administrative tasks," but which also coincided with the growing criticism from the CECC.

On Tuesday, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who is also head of the CECC, took the study's leaders to task for delaying the announcement, saying they had stirred up controversy only to "fold" at the last minute.

He also questioned their lack of adherence to research ethics, noting that they had repeatedly discussed the study in public before it had undergone peer review.

For that reason, the move by CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) to attend and speak at Thursday's event came as a surprise.

While acknowledging the controversy over the issue, Chuang nevertheless thanked the study's leaders for shedding more light on the actual prevalence of the virus and validating the government's epidemic prevention strategies.

Meanwhile, in an apparent reference to the ethics debate, Chen Hsiu-hsi said the study had been submitted to six experts for peer review and had already received approval from four.

(By Chen Wei-ting, Chen Chih-chung and Matthew Mazzetta)

Enditem/J