{"id":17120,"date":"2021-04-19T15:01:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-19T15:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/?p=17120"},"modified":"2021-09-23T14:21:27","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T14:21:27","slug":"can-i-use-an-antibody-test-to-check-if-the-covid-vaccine-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/17120","title":{"rendered":"Can I use an antibody test to check if the COVID vaccine worked?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi<\/p>\n<p>Antibody tests for diagnosis are different to antibody tests for vaccine response<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>They test for different types of antibodies.<\/strong> So you can have full vaccine protection and still test negative on a diagnostic test.<\/p>\n<p>Guidelines currently do <strong>not<\/strong> recommend testing for individual responses to the COVID vaccine. This is even in people who might be expected to have a lower response.<\/p>\n<p>Even using the right test, scientists have not yet worked out a target level for immune responses to be protective.<\/p>\n<p>They specifically advise not to used antibody tests as these are not likely to produce reliable results.<\/p>\n<p>The negative result does not mean the vaccine did not work. The immune system is complex, and this test is not sensitive enough to show if you have protection.<\/p>\n<p><em>This is one of more than 65 questions about COVID vaccines. It was produced by and for people living with HIV.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/16330\"><strong>Q&amp;A on COVID vaccines: are they safe and effective?<br \/>\n<\/strong>https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/16330<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi. I had the Pfizer vaccine first shot 11 weeks ago and I just did a home test for COVID antibodies. This was the fingerpick test with a result in 20 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>The result came back negative. Does that mean the vaccine hasn\u2019t worked? Am I protected or not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-covid-19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}