The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has announced that the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (Taiwan CDC) will conduct a research project on the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among blood donors to reinforce the surveillance of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in the community.

The project plans to conduct tests on 5,000 randomly selected archive samples of blood donated to blood donation centers nationwide between April 25 and July 3 to look for antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein and the spike protein, and the donors who had donated blood during the time period have a 1-2% of chance of being randomly selected.

The CECC pointed out that joining in or withdrawing from the project does not affect the existing rights and interests of the blood donors, and no special designation will be indicated on the database.

The research has been reviewed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and adopts an opt out approach to ensure subjects' right to autonomy.