U.Porto to provide serological tests to the academic community

Starting on 4th May, teaching staff, workers, researchers and students of the U.Porto will be able to access free serological tests to determine the level of immunity to Covid-19. 

The University of Porto will be one of the first institutions in Portugal to provide immunity testing to Covid-19 to its academic community, whenever these members need to restart face-to-face activities within the university facilities, they will be able to perform a free serological test to determine the degree of exposure to Covid-19.

This is the result of a joint initiative by the Rectory and the Public Health Institute of the University of Porto (ISPUP). The performing of these tests will enable to know the immunity condition of each faculty member to the novel coronavirus. In addition, this will be the first step to subsequently develop a study on the level of population immunity in Portugal.

Serological tests are diagnostic methods that are used to identify antibodies and antigens in a person's blood, which indicates that they have been exposed to Covid-19 and to check if a person has immunity to the disease. It is very similar to glucose tests by diabetics.

The place to perform these tests will be announced shortly.

It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education has established the deadline of late April for institutions to "draft progressive lifting of the contingency measures in place, namely the phased reactivation of face-to-face classroom activities", which can resume os of 4th May 2020.