SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — How prevalent is COVID-19? Who exactly develops antibodies to COVID-19 and how long do those antibodies last? Will those antibodies prevent you from getting COVID-19 again? These are some of the questions research professionals at Sanford Research seek to answer with a new study.
The study, called Seroprevalence under Repeated Viral Immunity Examination, or SURVIVE for short, will enroll up to 3,000 Sanford Health and Good Samaritan Society employees who meet specific criteria for the study. The voluntary enrollees will then have their blood drawn seven times over the next year to detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
“Our Sanford Health and Good Samaritan Employees have done and fantastic job caring for our patients and residents during this pandemic,” said Allison Suttle, M.D., chief medical officer for Sanford Health. “Now, we want to know more about their potential exposure to the virus, how their immune systems responded, and overall, more about the virus itself. We know our teams here always rise to the challenge, and we know they’ll be ready to help in this next step to better understand COVID-19.”
The study will begin with employees in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota who worked directly with COVID-19 patients in the designated hospital unit, the emergency department, OB-GYN triage, Sanford laboratories, or any Good Samaritan Society care location. The study will later expand to other areas and is free of charge for employees to participate.
Anyone who takes part in the study will receive their results. At the current time, the true significance of the detection of antibodies is not fully known. It is assumed the presence of antibodies means one was infected with the virus, but it is not known if antibodies protect from being infected from the virus again.
(Sanford Health contributed to this report.)
