Accelerating SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence Surveys through Dried Blood Spots (ASSESS-DBS)

Phase 4 of BC’s Restart Plan requires community immunity but seroprevalence studies of people who are street entrenched, in prison, or live in remote or rural communities is challenging. The most accurate serology tests are lab-based Enzyme-Linked Immuno Assays (EIAs) that use blood drawn from veins, but with people who are not engaged into care, or who have collapsed veins due injection drug use or obesity, it’s not a viable option. Point-of-care tests (PoCT) that use blood collected through finger prick (like a glucose test) seems to offer a solution but these tests lack specificity and therefore can’t provide an accurate picture. We propose evaluating dried blood spot (DBS) which seems to offer the accuracy of EIAs and the ease of collection of a PoCT to determine BC seroprevalence.