Verifying immunity – SYNLAB helps people to monitor their immunity status after vaccination against and recovering from SARS-CoV-2

SYNLAB, the leading pan-European clinical laboratory and medical diagnostic services provider, underlines the importance of using quantitative IgG antibody and cellular immunity tests to monitor immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Especially now, considering steadily increasing vaccination rates across the globe, understanding people’s immune protection against SARS-CoV-2 becomes crucial for verifying a person’s immunity status after vaccination or an infection with SARS-CoV-2. Large-scale testing for antibodies and cellular immunity does not only help to determine how long immunity lasts after vaccination or an infection. Combined with effective vaccination programmes, monitoring the immunity status builds the basis for any potential return to normal life. Launching high-volume antibody testing already in May 2020, SYNLAB now offers quantitative IgG antibody tests across the Group’s entire laboratory network.

The quantitative IgG antibody test selectively detects antibodies directed against the protein S at the spike of the virus. Since all the vaccines currently in use are addressing this specific protein S, the test allows to adequately measure the human immune response resulting from vaccination as well as immune responses resulting from a prior infection. The test can be performed after recovery and any time during the vaccination period but is recommended after 2-3 weeks post vaccination.

Cellular immunity tests, on the other hand, isolate immune cells and stimulate them with spike proteins of the virus. This enables measurement of the amount and activity of T-Cells, which are responsible for eliminating ill or altered cells. T-Cells together with antibodies make up the human immune response. Therefore, cellular immunity tests are complementary to antibody tests.

Santiago Valor, Chief Medical Officer at SYNLAB, emphasizes the added-value of conducting quantitative IgG antibody and cellular immunity tests: “Increasing immunity is key in the fight against the pandemic, and mass vaccinations are the way forward. To examine and verify a person’s immunity status after vaccinations or an infection, however, quantitative IgG antibody and the cellular immunity tests are important complimentary measures. This holds specifically true since conducting these tests on an ongoing, large-scale basis will help us to determine how long immunity from vaccinations and infections last, and after how many months or years vaccinations must be renewed.”