On Jul. 15, 2020, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported they had joined an international effort led by the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics and the World Health Organization (WHO) to evaluate COVID-19 antibody tests for use as diagnostics in places with limited resources.

Rapid antibody tests are much simpler than molecular tests, because they require only a drop of blood and no high-tech machines. The drawback is that such tests only detect antibodies – the body’s response to the virus – not the virus itself, and such antibodies don’t reliably appear until 10 to 14 days after infection.