Abstract :
Background: Dengue, mosquito borne acute febrile viral illness has evolved as a global life threatening public health concern in South east Asia affecting around 2.5 billion individuals in more than 100 countries.
Aim: The study was conducted to compare commercially available NS1 Ag card test with IgM Capture ELISA.
Materials and Methods: A total of 521 clinically suspected cases of dengue were tested by Rapid Card test and Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA).
Results: Confirmed dengue positive cases by these methods were 228.A total of 222 cases were found to be positive by Card test. Out of these 222 positive samples, 61 (27.5%) were positive for NS1 antigen only. A total of 123 cases were positive for IgM by ELISA (99 for IgM only and 24 for IgM IgG) as compared to 117 cases by rapid card test. Thus six cases (2.6%) of IgM positivity were missed by the rapid card test.
Conclusion: Immunochromatographic testing (ICT) can prove to be a very useful tool for especially in resource poor settings, such as in the peripheral health care center. On the other hand, in tertiary care hospitals, where a large number of samples are to be tested and the technical expertise is available, ELISA can be very effective in diagnosis of dengue infection.
Keyword :
Dengue Fever, ELISA, NS1 Ag.