OTTAWA—With no COVID-19 vaccine in sight, Justin Trudeau is placing a big bet on as-yet unproven and unapproved serologic or blood antibody tests to determine how far the virus has spread and whether any broader immunity has developed in the population.

The federal Liberal government says it will more than triple spending on coronavirus research to $1.1 billion, with the bulk of that — $662 million — going to support clinical trials into vaccines and treatments, led by Canada.

“A vaccine is the long-term solution to this virus,” Trudeau said Thursday. “Until we have either a vaccine or significant treatments for COVID-19, we’re not going to be able to talk about getting back to normal.”

Once a vaccine is developed, he said, the race will be on to ensure a domestic supply, just as the global competition for personal protective equipment turned into a dogfight as supply chains in the pandemic tightened.

So the Trudeau government says it will spend millions to help build new laboratories and upgrade existing ones to be able to mass produce vaccines in Canada.

However, with most experts predicting a vaccine is at least 12-18 months away, Trudeau says Ottawa will try to expand virus testing and research into treatments in the short-term, and to speed up reviews, approvals and use of serology or blood antibody tests to track immunity for the medium and longer term.

“The better we understand this virus, its spread and its impact on different people, the better we can fight it and eventually defeat it,” he said.

Trudeau stressed the need to broaden current virus testing and to continue public health measures, especially as provinces seek to reopen their economies.

Saskatchewan is the first to release a detailed plan with dates, timelines and instructions for businesses, saying dentist offices, hairdressers, golf courses and retail stores could be allowed to reopen starting in May.

“Different provinces are in very different postures related to COVID-19 and will be taking decisions that are appropriate for them,” Trudeau said. “What we’re doing at the federal level is attempting to pull together and co-ordinate all different provinces so that we are working from a similar set of guidelines and principles to ensure that Canadians right across the country are being kept safe as we look to these next steps.”

Broader testing is “key,” he said. Canada, which is now testing about 20,000 people a day, needs to ramp that up. Trudeau said chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam pegged 60,000 as a target, but some experts say it may need to be even double that, up to 120,000 tests a day, he added.

So Trudeau is betting on serology tests to help in the long run to know the extent of immunity in the broader population.

He named an “immunity task force” of researchers, including Tam and Dr. David Naylor — who led the 2003 independent review of Canada’s response to the SARS coronavirus. It will oversee nationwide antibody surveys over the next two years in which Trudeau said 1 million Canadians would eventually be tested for exposure to the disease.

Unlike nose and throat swabs that use reverse transcription polymerase chains to detect the presence of the virus to show if you currently have an infection, serology tests check for antibodies in the blood to the virus. In other words they detect the body’s immune response to an infection caused by the coronavirus, not the presence of the virus itself.

So far, Canada has not approved any serology tests, though Tam said that is imminent. Public health labs across the country are rushing to validate the devices for use in clinical trials.

Yanick Thibeault, head of Montreal-based Luminarie Canada Inc. which has applied for Health Canada approval of a COVID-19 antibody testing device, says the German-made Nadal rapid antibody testing kit is available in 23 other countries. It provides a striped readout, like a diabetes blood sugar test or a home pregnancy test, within 15 minutes of a health practitioner dropping whole blood, serum or plasma into the well on the small plastic device.

It is intended to be used as a “point-of-care device”, meaning at a hospital, health clinic or testing site not at home, because the results need to be reported to public health authorities.

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Thibeault said Canada is taking a careful but necessary approach.

“It’s for the safety of the population,” he said. “From a company point of view of course I’d like everybody to use it, but from a personal point of view, as a citizen of this country I want to make sure the right kits are released for the right reasons.”

Just last week, Health Canada publicly listed 52 applications from companies seeking approval for testing devices — both the nose and throat swabs or PCR tests, as well as serology tests. There were 32 serology test applications, most of which — 22 — came from Chinese companies.

By Thursday there were just 19 applications for tests, including five serology tests from China.

A Health Canada spokesman refused to say why so many Chinese serology tests were dropped from the pending reviews, saying the list was revised to include only completed applications submitted for scientific review and only those companies who consented to be identified.

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