Quest Wins CDC Contract To Support COVID-19 Infection & Vaccination Seroprevalence Research

(RTTNews) - Quest Diagnostics (DGX) said that it has received a contract from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC to perform testing and provide laboratory data analysis to help identify patterns in SARS-COV-2 seroprevalence on a multistate basis. The total contract value with all options is valued at up to about $19.5 million.

The goal is to aid the CDC in assessing the proportion of the population that has been infected by or vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The company noted that it will employ its comprehensive menu of COVID-19 antibody test and data analytics services to support population health research across 45 states and Puerto Rico.

The new agreement extends and broadens the scope of the company's contributions to the CDC's seroprevalence research, which includes participating in the SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance (SPHERES) consortium.

Quest noted that it will utilize serum specimen remnants from clinical testing for a range of non-COVID-19 conditions to identify immune response to SARS-CoV-2 using its comprehensive menu of COVID-19 serological tests.

The company's serological tests are authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use and aid in identifying antibodies produced in response to recent or prior infection and/or vaccination. Quest will provide the data analysis to the CDC in a HIPAA-compliant manner to support public health analysis and reporting.