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Background & objectives: As typhoid fever is endemic in India, there is a continuing search for a simple test which can be carried out in small laboratories for an early and rapid diagnosis. We have evaluated the Typhidot test for this purpose.
Methods: The Typhidot test was carried out on coded sera according to the manufacturer's instructions. The test was performed on 30 Widal positive sera, 30 sera from blood culture positive patients, 60 Widal negative sera and 30 samples from patients whose blood culture grew Gram negative bacilli (GNB) other than Salmonella Typhi.
Results: Typhidot test was positive for both IgG and IgM in 39 samples, IgM alone in 24 and IgG alone in 2. Of the 30 cuit positive samples, 27 were positive by Typhidot. The Typhidot test gave a sensitivity of 100 per cent and specificity of 80 per cent when bacteraemic patients were analysed.
Interpretation & conclusion: The Typhidot is easy to perform, and requires no special equipment or training of staff for interpretation of results. It will be a useful complementary test to blood culture and the Widal test in the diagnosis of typhoid fever.
Key words Diagnosis - typhidot - typhoid fever
Typhoid fever continues to be a major public health problem in many parts of the world. Early and accurate diagnosis is necessary for prompt and effective treatment. Hence, there is a continuing search for improved diagnostic procedures. This has mainly been in the area of serological diagnosis since many diagnostic laboratories in developing countries do not have facilities for blood culture. The Widal test is the mainstay in the diagnosis of typhoid fever in most laboratories but it has drawbacks1. We had earlier standardised two conventional ELISAs for this purpose2 but these assays require technical expertise. Cardona-Castro et al3 have worked on a dot blot assay for the detection of IgG and IgM antibodies against three Salmonella Typhi antigens (lipopolysaccharide, crude and flagellar) and found that the best diagnostic efficiency was in detecting IgG against the flagellar antigen. We report here on our results of the evaluation of the Typhidot test to see if it will be of help in the early and reliable diagnosis of...