2 days, 3 tests, 3 results: Patients alert for Drastic Discrepancies in Antibody Testing

Can you get a green certificate for antibodies? Maybe it depends on how persistent you are and how many times you try.

Patients are alarmed about drastic differences in the result of samples taken in different laboratories. Sometimes the samples are taken in a day or two, other times - only a few hours apart. It turns out that the result of one laboratory may be sufficient for a green certificate, and in another - noт. Or one result exceeds the other.

An OFFNews reader said she contracted COVID-19 in the spring and asked to have her antibodies measured to get a green certificate. It turned out to be insufficient - 120 units (BAU/ml) out of the required 150 for a certificate. Her friend and medical student told her that she had been tested several times for antibodies so she could attend lectures. He obtained three different results from three laboratories, the last of which was over the required 150 BAU/ml. When she realized this, our reader tried her luck in another laboratory. And so it turned out that her antibodies had increased from 120 to 250 units.

Consumer forums and lab pages on social media are full of such signals.

"Two days ago I did an antibody test in lab XX and the result was 21. Today I did in lab YY and I have 151. How do these things happen?" Wrote a user.

"62 in one lab and 466 in the other," added another.

The inaccuracy of antibody tests was the main argument for not recognizing them as a European green certificate. Many experts in our country expressed doubts about the extent to which they are indicative of protection, but subsequently the Ministry of Health decided to issue a local certificate to people with antibodies above 150 BAU/ml. This certificate cannot be...