Dengue Fever Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Dengue Fever, including details on symptoms, risk factors, diagnosis, treatment, prevention.

Discrimination between primary and secondary dengue virus infection by an immunoglobulin G avidity test using a single acute-phase serum sample.

Matheus S, Deparis X, Labeau B, Lelarge J, Morvan J, Dussart P

Centre National de Référence des Arbovirus, Institut Pasteur de la Guyane, 23 Avenue Pasteur, BP 6010, 97306 Cayenne Cedex, French Guiana.

For clinical and epidemiological purposes, it is necessary to be able to classify serological responses during dengue virus infection. Thus, it is important to develop a test that can distinguish between primary and secondary serological responses. The hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test, which is currently recommended by the World Health Organization, is complicated to perform. We developed an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay based on changes in the avidity of immunoglobulin G during the infectious episode. This test can discriminate between primary and secondary infections by using a single serum sample collected during the acute phase of infection. We took 1,140 avidity measurements with 118 pairs of serum samples or sequential samples taken from patients classified as having primary or secondary infection according to World Health Organization laboratory criteria. The mean percent avidity was significantly lower during primary infection (25.9%) than during secondary infection (66.3%) (Student t test, P < 0.001). The test had a sensitivity of 82.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 79.0 to 86.6) and a specificity of 77.5% (95% CI = 73.3 to 81.7). Based on analysis of only blood samples collected between the third and seventh days of the illness, during which most clinical complications occur, the sensitivity and specificity of the test were 95.1% (95% CI = 92.6 to 97.7) and 80.0% (95% CI = 75.3 to 84.7), respectively. This rapid and simple test appears to be an excellent alternative to the HI test for discriminating between primary and secondary dengue virus infections during the acute phase of dengue.

Published 15 June 2005 in J Clin Microbiol, 43(6): 2793-7.
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