pune health minister rajesh tope said the state is set to roll out antibody test kits to screen frontline workersguidelines on use will be issued shortly the minister told toi on thursday the tests detect antibodies or immunoglobulins which the immune system generates whenever it fights pathogens in this case sarscov2antibody tests are done during serosurveys carried out to determine infection spread in a community after a pilot serosurvey recently the icmr gave all states the goahead to expand the tracing programme the focus for maharashtra will include highrisk or vulnerable populations tope said health experts told toi antibody tests play a key role during an outbreak the igg antibodies found in the blood after an illness start to appear two weeks after illness the igg test cant spot live infection but uncovers history of covid19 one expert said giridhara babu a senior epidemiologist with the public health foundation of india said antibody testing among frontline covid19 workers will help authorities determine prevalence of the disease but he added that for frontline workers antibody tests are of limited value as history of infection does not provide direction on what to do next also even if they have had the infection frontline workers would still need to follow all precautions babu said public health expert r jotkar said the basic aim of this initiative is to assess the number of immunes among the said workforce this assessment will help in triaging quarantining isolation of the workforce and uninterrupted service deliveries he said