Journal of
Public Health and Epidemiology

  • Abbreviation: J. Public Health Epidemiol.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-2316
  • DOI: 10.5897/JPHE
  • Start Year: 2009
  • Published Articles: 662

Full Length Research Paper

Comparison of various immunoassay kits for rapid screening of pandemic influenza H1N1-2009 viruses

Binod Kumar1, Bhavna Sharma1, Madhu Khanna1*, Varinder Singh2, Mradul K Daga3, V. K. Vijayan4, A. C. Mishra5, M. S. Chadha5, Mamta Chawla-Sarkar6and Harpreet Kaur7
1Department of Respiratory Virology, Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. 2Department of Pediatrics, Lady Hardinge Medical College and Kalawati Saran Children’s Hospital, New Delhi, India. 3Department of Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India. 4Department of Respiratory Medicine, Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi, Delhi, India. 5National Institute of Virology, Pune, India. 6National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases, Kolkata, India. 7Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, India.
Email: [email protected]

  •  Accepted: 05 October 2010
  •  Published: 30 November 2010

Abstract

The success of therapeutic measures is predicted on the basis of rapid and precise diagnosis of  infection. A comparison of three rapid influenza immunoassay (RIIA) kits, the Directigen Flu A+B test, QuickVue influenza A+B test and the Quick S-INFLU A.B, for detection of pandemic influenza H1N1 (2009) viruses, have been made on 105 patients with flu like syndrome. The sensitivity, specificity and ability to screen influenza type A and B viruses were evaluated. The clinical specimens detected positive by real-time RT-PCR for pandemic influenza H1N1 (2009) viruses and the reference influenza strain [A/PR/8/34 (H1N1)] were cultured in MDCK cells to determine TCID50 and the performance of kits were compared against the current gold standard, real-time RT-PCR. The diagnostic sensitivity of Directigen kit was 103 TCID50/ml where as the QuickVue and Quick S-INFLU A.B were 103.5 TCID50/ml in case of the pandemic H1N1 viruses which was comparable to the reference H1N1 virus (10TCID50/ml for QuickVue and Directigen and 103.5 TCID50/ml for Quick S-INFLU A.B). Our findings suggest that although RIIA kits are not as sensitive as the conventional and real-time RT-PCR yet they are very useful in preliminary bedside screening of large number of critically ill patients during pandemic situation.

 

Key words: Pandemic influenza virus (H1N1), Rapid influenza immunoassay (RIIA), Real-time RT-PCR, sensitivity, specificity.

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