Lombardy will start 20,000 antibody tests a day from Tuesday to detect coronavirus immunity

The Italian region of Lombardy says it will start performing 20,000 coronavirus immunity tests per day from next Tuesday. 

Officials say the ‘reliable’ tests have been developed at a research hospital near Milan and will start being offered to health workers next week. 

The government of the hard-hit region says the tests will ‘certify immunity to the virus’ by detecting antibodies which the immune system has developed to fend off the disease. 

Immunity tests are seen as crucial to ending the global lockdown, but ministers in Britain and Germany have said they are not yet reliable enough.   

A health worker wearing a protective suit and masks carries out a sample antibody test on a woman in Milan earlier this week. Lombardy now wants to perform 20,000 a day 

The governor of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, said the region had been conducting a ‘search for reliable serological tests’ which can detect immunity. 

‘One of these has been identified at the Policlinico San Matteo di Pavia’, he said, referring to a teaching hospital around 20 miles from Milan. 

The company that produces the tests will pass on royalties of one per cent to the hospital. The company was not named. 

The money received by the hospital will be used ‘to finance public research and researchers working on the front lines every day,’ officials say. 

The 20,000 daily tests will begin on April 21, starting with health workers and carers, allowing those who are confirmed immune to return to work. 

The provinces of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona and Lodi are first in line for the tests after their health systems were overwhelmed by the crisis.  

After that, the regional government hopes to start ‘population tests’ which could allow members of the public to return to work once they are declared immune. 

‘On the one hand there will be those who will receive an immunity licence, on the other hand, those who will not be immune, will have to continue to maintain the precautions currently adopted for all,’ the governor said. 

A medical professional works in the coronavirus unit of a hospital in Bologna yesterday. Italy has been under lockdown since March 9 to slow the spread of the virus

A medical professional works in the coronavirus unit of a hospital in Bologna yesterday. Italy has been under lockdown since March 9 to slow the spread of the virus 

Similar plans are underway elsewhere in Italy. The national government wants to conduct a sample of 150,000 random tests, Italian media says. 

That process is at a less advanced stage, and the national government has not yet identified a test which it will use. 

There has been much enthusiasm for antibody tests around the world, because the prospect of declaring people immune offers at least a partial way out of the lockdown until a vaccine is developed. 

However, UK health secretary Matt Hancock says that none of the 17.5million tests which Britain wanted to order have been shown to work.  

‘We’re getting the test results through every day, I was looking at some last night. But we still don’t have any that are good enough,’ he said earlier this month. 

‘At the moment, the most important thing for getting out of this as soon as possible is for people to follow the social distancing rules.’ 

The Department of Health says it bought a handful of the tests on a trial basis and is looking to ‘get our money back where possible’. 

AstraZeneca, Cambridge University and GlaxoSmithKline are among the organisations working on antibody tests. Those three are hoping to develop one by the start of May.  

This graph shows the daily number of coronavirus cases recorded in Italy. Yesterday's figure of 2,667 was the fewest since March 13 when the curve was on its way up

This graph shows the daily number of coronavirus cases recorded in Italy. Yesterday’s figure of 2,667 was the fewest since March 13 when the curve was on its way up

This chart shows the daily number of deaths, which has fallen from the peak of 919 but has stalled in recent days

This chart shows the daily number of deaths, which has fallen from the peak of 919 but has stalled in recent days 

UK health officials have also warned that antibodies will not be fully developed immediately after an infection, meaning a longer wait to be declared immune.  

Germany has sounded similar caution, although it has voiced hopes of issuing immunity licences in similar terms to Italy. 

Speaking on CNBC this week, German health minister Jens Spahn said that ‘so far there is no antibody test, at least as far as we know, that is good enough to really take the decision if people are immune enough to go back to work’. 

‘Our people, our experts assume within two, three, four weeks we might have these tests. 

‘As soon as we have them, that is of course a real game-changer.’ 

Italy has been under lockdown longer than any other European country, imposing an unprecedented nationwide quarantine on March 9. 

Officials have spoken of a ‘phase two’ in which Italy learns to ‘live with the virus’ until a vaccine is developed.  

Infections have slowed to fewer than 3,000 a day in the last two days, although the death figures have not improved in recent days. 

The current tally is 165,155 cases and 21,645 deaths, the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States.