**Please Note: Ichor Blood Services is expanding to more locations in the near future. Currently we serve Calgary, Edmonton, and Niagara Falls. If your city is not currently listed, please join our waitlist. We will contact you if and when your city is included.
Lethbridge COVID-19 Corporate PCR Saliva Testing Available Now
Although Ichor is not operational in Lethbridge quite yet, we are able to offer our remote monitored PCR Saliva testing program to companies and large groups.
The program works like this:
- Your group pre-purchase saliva collection devices and test processing fees for $220 + GST, and they are FedEx delivered to your door by our US lab partner. You can order as many as you want, they just have to be pre-paid.
- When it is time to conduct your test, you connect via video call to an Ichor technician, who will guide you through and witness the collection. This is a requirement and condition of apprroval by the Lab.
- When you are completed your collections, you label your samples, put them in the provided shipping mailer, put on the pre-paid FedEx return label, and drop it off at a FedEx location or schedule a pick up.
- Results are provided to you via secure patient portal within 48-72 hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
When our body faces off against a virus our immune system creates antibodies to fight it. By testing for the antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2 (the official name for the coronavirus which causes the disease COVID-19) and finding them within a patient, we can determine if people have been infected with the disease and likely have built up antibodies against it, at least for a short period of time.
Unlike other tests that diagnose COVID-19 through either a throat or nasal swab by looking for genetic evidence of the virus, antibody testing requires serology (a blood test) to see if our body's immune system has developed antibodies after fighting off SARS-CoV-2. The wonderful part about antibodies is that each one is specific to the virus or bacteria that it was produced to fight, so we can single them out and determine whether or not a person has been infected with that specific virus. Antibodies also last a lot longer in our bodies than the genetic material of the virus, allowing for a much wider window to detect it.
Antibody testing for COVID-19 is important because it may help identify those individuals who have recovered from the virus. Those who have the antibodies for COVID-19 most likely have developed some sort of protection or immunity against reinfection, at least for a short period of time, allowing them to return to work or other activities safely. Because the antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 remain in the body for a much longer period of time than the genetic material of the virus itself, antibody testing is also a great tool for determining past infections. As we begin to shift to the next phase of this pandemic, antibody testing is also being looked at as a way to help return things to the way they were before the virus struck.
We collect specimens on behalf of several labs that offer a SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Test. In general, if your test result comes back negative, the negative result is reported with 99% certainty. If your test result is positive, a confirmatory test is then run. If your confirmatory test is positive, it will validate the presence of antibodies with a Positive Predictive Value of 99%.
No, the COVID-19 serology antibody test is only designed to determine a past infection or exposure to SARS-CoV-2. The antibodies that are created to fight off the virus usually appear around 7-14 days after contracting SARS-CoV-2. While it's possible that a serology antibody test could indicate a current infection, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing via a nasal or throat swab that looks for the genetic material of the virus is currently the best way to identify active SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Results will be emailed to you by the lab that ran your tests.