The undersecretary of health said that WHO does not recommend the use of antibody tests to determine the history of infection and that globally, it is not known whether the new coronavirus generates immunity.
MEXICO CITY (Agencies) – Hugo López-Gatell, the undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, explained that it is not known worldwide if having the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes covid.19 disease, generates immunity in people.
“Around the world, there is no certainty that infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus will allow permanent immunity (…) It is not known if infection by SARS-CoV-2, it is not known if having had covid leaves me protected, so one should not be confident,” Lopez Gatell explained during the afternoon conference.
The federal official added that because there is no certainty about immunity to covid-19, he does not recommend using immune passports or antibody tests to encourage travel to other countries or the revival of work.
“Private companies in several countries have outsourced this idea. I will do tests, tests, tests, which will allow me to detect that you already had covid-19 and those people return to work. It is not the case. There is no scientific basis for this practice, the World Health Organization since April 24 made an explicit statement recommending that antibody tests are not considered as demonstrative of infection history and much less than the infection history is a guarantee that we will not be infected again,” he explained.
