Comparison of a dipstick enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with commercial assays for detection of Japanese encephalitis virus-specific IgM antibodies.

BACKGROUND

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is a major public health concern in Asia including India.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate an in-house developed dipstick enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test vis-à-vis two commercial kits for detection of JE virus-specific IgM antibodies.

SETTING AND

DESIGN

Comparative study carried out in Research and Development centre.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A total of 136 specimens comprising 84 serum and 52 CSF samples were tested by in-house dipstick ELISA, Pan-Bio IgM capture ELISA (Pan-Bio, Australia) and JEV CheX IgM capture ELISA (XCyton, India).

RESULTS

The overall agreement among all three tests was found to be 92% with both serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples. The sensitivity of the dipstick ELISA was found to be 91% with serum and 89% with CSF samples respectively. The specificity of the dipstick ELISA with reference to both commercial assays was found to be 100% in serum and CSF samples in this study.

CONCLUSIONS

The in-house dipstick ELISA with its comparable sensitivity and specificity can be used as a promising test in field conditions since it is simple, rapid and requires no specialized equipment.