July 24, 2020

A new study from Sanford Research will try to determine the prevalence of COVID-19 and learn more about its antibodies.

Seroprevalence Under Repeated Viral Immunity Examination, or SURVIVE, will enroll up to 3,000 Sanford Health and Good Samaritan Society employees who meet specific criteria for the study. The voluntary enrollees will have their blood drawn seven times over the next year to detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The research is designed to show who exactly develops antibodies to COVID-19, how long the antibodies last and whether they prevent someone from getting COVID-19 again.

“Our Sanford Health and Good Samaritan employees have done a fantastic job caring for our patients and residents during this pandemic,” Dr. Allison Suttle, chief medical officer for Sanford Health, said in a statement. “Now, we want to know more about their potential exposure to the virus, how their immune systems responded and, overall, more about the virus itself. We know our teams here always rise to the challenge, and we know they’ll be ready to help in this next step to better understand COVID-19.”

The study will begin with employees in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota who worked directly with COVID-19 patients in the designated hospital unit, the emergency department, OB-GYN triage, Sanford laboratories or any Good Samaritan care location. Later, the study, which is free for employees to participate in, will expand to other areas.

Those who take part in the study will receive their results. At the current time, the true significance of the detection of antibodies in not fully known, Sanford said. It is assumed the presence of antibodies means one was infected with the virus, but it is not known if antibodies protect from being infected from the virus again.