CMO Dr Roshan Parasram said the preparations for the covid19 antibody study announced by Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh are continuing well.

Speaking at the Health Ministry’s media conference on Wednesday, Parasram outlined some of the steps which had been made towards implementation of the project.

“We have established two main teams, one from the Ministry of Health. As the minister would have said, we are leading from the Ministry of Health.

"We had a meeting with UWI last week, and they are about to finalise both teams. There’s a document going towards ethical approval with both the Ministry of Health and UWI’s ethics committees, and we’re in the process of doing costing which is being presented by UWI to the ministry so we can get the necessary consumables to go forward.”

The study will determine the levels of antibodies in the population. Deyalsingh announced the study at a media conference on March 5.

He said, “What the study will do is help us determine the levels of antibodies in the population by taking blood samples and examining the serum. This will help us fill in our knowledge gaps in an epidemic of this nature, determine how close our estimates are of where we feel our natural immunity is in the population.

"It will also help us predict in the future coming months things like what hospital capacity we need as we move to endemicity, what are the possible chances of future surges as natural and induced immunity wane.”

He said as a policymaker he was keen to see how the country moved from pandemic to epidemic.

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