Abbott antibody test cleared for emergency use.

A fourth COVID-19 test from Abbott Laboratories, based in Illinois with alocation in Liberty, received Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, announced today.

This antibody test uses IgG antibodies found in the blood to detect whether patients have COVID-19 or have recovered from the virus. Despite the reputation for some antibody testing to result in false positives and negatives, the SARS-CoV-2 IgG serology test was 99.6% accurate in recent tests to exclude false positives and 100% accurate in its ability to exclude false negatives in patients tested 14 days after first showing symptoms of the virus, according to a news release.

"Having more options of highly reliable tests across our platforms will help health care workers and health officials as they conduct broad scale testing for COVID-19," Robert B. Ford, president and chief executive officer of Abbott, said in the release. "Abbott is a leader in providing antibody testing at large scale on multiple systems, which is helping meet the needs of laboratories as they look to build testing capacity."

The serology test will be used in critical-needs situations at hospitals and labs across the United States. Other Abbott antibody tests approved by the FDA for emergency use include its SARS_CoV-2 IgG antibody blood test using Architect laboratory systems and a test run via the lab's high-throughput Alinity i system, which is already in hospitals, academic centers and reference laboratories across the...