Scottish surveillance programme

supporting the design and refinement of the COVID-19 Scottish surveillance programme

Estimating the prevalence of COVID-19 infections in the community, their distribution among different age groups, and how these vary with time is essential to inform interventions, including the possibility of introducing “immunological passports” for the workforce.

The CVR is working in collaboration with the NHS and Public Health Scotland to address two key questions:

  1. What proportion of the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde population has been infected with SARS-CoV-2;
  2. Do routine serological tests (i.e. ELISA) correlate with neutralisation assays, which are more informative on the individual’s immunity against reinfection but impractical for large surveys?

The results of this project will directly inform current Public Health Scotland efforts to design a serology-based national surveillance programme.