Unilabs launches large-scale Covid-19 immunity study with Greater Copenhagen hospitals

Copenhagen, 1 July 2020: Unilabs Denmark, a unit of the leading European diagnostic services provider, has launched a large-scale study with hospitals in the Greater Copenhagen region to investigate whether recovered Covid-19 patients have gained immunity to the disease, and whether hospital employees are more likely to catch it.

Over the next three weeks, Unilabs will be testing 15,000 blood samples for antibodies to Covid-19. The aim is to determine how many hospital employees have been infected, and how many of those have produced antibodies.

“We’re happy we were chosen to support this study and thus contribute to the vital work of understanding Covid-19 – and specifically to answer the important question of whether an effective immune response is maintained,” said Jakob Gjørret, MD of Unilabs Denmark. “This study will help us quantify the occupational risk to healthcare staff and guide policy responses to Covid-19 – in Denmark and around the world.”

“We are very pleased that Unilabs can help us with the processing of so many samples, especially at such short notice. This will significantly support the research project,” said Erik Sørensen, Laboratory Manager, Copenhagen Hospital Biobank Unit.

Unilabs, the second-largest European diagnostic services provider, has completed almost 900,000 Covid-19 tests across 17 countries, and more than 200,000 Covid-19 antibody tests. Besides antibody testing in Denmark, Unilabs performs Covid-19 tests and antibody tests in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Slovakia, Czechia, the UAE, and Spain.   

About the study:

All staff with patient contact in all hospitals within the Greater Copenhagen region are being offered screening for antibodies against Covid-19.

Testing will take place a total of three times: at the start of the study, after one month, and after five months. The first round of testing will include more than 33,000 persons.

Clinical information is obtained from the state-run Danish Health Platform as well as questionnaires. The results are compared with a study of Danish blood donors, who act as a control population.

Participants are screened to determine how many are infected at any given time, and whether they have a sustained immune response which effectively protects them from re-infection.

Media contact: 

Alistair Hammond, Global Director of Communications

e: Alistair.Hammond@unilabs.com

t: +44 771 773 0441

About Unilabs

Unilabs is one of Europe’s largest diagnostics companies. It offers a complete range of laboratory, pathology and imaging services for patients all around the world. With 12,700 employees across 150 imaging centres and 250 labs in 17 countries, we perform more than four million lab tests a week – saving lives every single day.