Accuracy of rapid Covid-19 antibody test ‘may be lower than previously suggested’

The AbC-19 Rapid Test uses a drop of blood from a finger-prick to see if it’s likely that someone has previously been infected with SARS-CoV-2

The test gives results in 20 minutes without the need to go to a laboratory. Picture: Simon Dawson/PA

The accuracy of a rapid finger-prick antibody test for coronavirus may be considerably lower than previously indicated, a new study suggests.

The results, published in the BMJ, suggest that if 10% of people given the test had previously been infected, around one in five positive test results would be false positives.