Diagnosis of Acute Dengue Virus Infection Using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay and Real-Time PCR (original) (raw)

2023, Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases & Medical Microbiology

Dengue fever is a viral infection caused by the dengue virus and is a growing concern for public health worldwide, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. Tis study aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of a commercially available NS1 ELISA kit for dengue fever in Pakistan using multiplex qRT-PCR as the gold standard. Te study recruited 1236 suspected cases of dengue fever admitted to public sector hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. Of the suspected cases, 610 (49.3%) were confrmed positive for DENV infection through qRT-PCR, with all four serotypes detected. DENV-2 was the most prevalent serotype, detected in 95.7% of cases. Te NS1 ELISA kit detected 71.1% of the positive cases. However, the diagnostic accuracy of the NS1 ELISA kit was found to be only 64.89%. Of the 610 confrmed cases, 68% were male and 32% were female, with a median age of 30 years. Dengue fever was diagnosed in 91.8% of cases, while 8.2% were diagnosed with dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). DHF patients had a higher prevalence of abdominal pain, hemorrhagic manifestations, and thrombocytopenia. Te cocirculation of all four DENV serotypes in Lahore is concerning and could lead to more severe forms of the disease, such as DHF or dengue shock syndrome, in the future. Te study highlights the low diagnostic accuracy of commercially available NS1 ELISA kits and emphasizes the importance of using molecular methods to confrm acute dengue infections. Given the increasing prevalence of dengue fever in developing countries like Pakistan, more accurate and reliable diagnostic tools are needed for efective disease management and control.