Performance of an influenza rapid test in children in a primary healthcare setting in Nicaragua

• Published in: PloS one 2009-11, Vol.4 (11), p.e7907-e7907
• Main Authors: Gordon, Aubree, Videa, Elsa, Saborio, Saira, López, Roger, Kuan, Guillermina, Reingold, Arthur, Balmaseda, Angel, Harris, Eva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age; Antigens, Viral - analysis; Child; Child Health Services - organization & administration; Child, Preschool; Children; Communicable Disease Control; Community Health Services - organization & administration; Comparative analysis; Cough; Developing Countries; Diagnosis; Diagnostic systems; Diagnostic tests; DNA polymerases; Enzymes; Epidemiology; Fever; Health aspects; Health care; Health surveillance; Humans; Infections; Infectious diseases; Infectious Diseases/Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases; Infectious Diseases/Respiratory Infections; Infectious Diseases/Viral Infections; Influenza; Influenza A; Influenza A virus - genetics; Influenza, Human - diagnosis; Influenza, Human - virology; Information technology; Laboratories; LDCs; Nicaragua; Pediatrics; Pharyngitis; Pharynx; Polymerase chain reaction; Primary care; Primary health care; Primary Health Care - organization & administration; Public health; Public Health and Epidemiology/Global Health; Public Health and Epidemiology/Infectious Diseases; Reagent Kits, Diagnostic - virology; Reproducibility of Results; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; RNA-directed DNA polymerase; Sensitivity and Specificity; Studies; Viruses
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007907

Influenza is major public health threat worldwide, yet the diagnostic accuracy of rapid tests in developing country settings is not well described. To investigate the diagnostic accuracy of the QuickVue Influenza A+B test in a primary care setting in a developing country, we performed a prospective study of diagnostic accuracy of the QuickVue Influenza A+B test in comparison to reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in a primary healthcare setting in children aged 2 to 12 years in Managua, Nicaragua. The sensitivity and specificity of the QuickVue test compared to RT-PCR were 68.5% (95% CI 63.4, 73.3) and 98.1% (95% CI 96.9, 98.9), respectively, for children with a fever or history of a fever and cough and/or sore throat. Test performance was found to be lower on the first day that symptoms developed in comparison to test performance on days two or three of illness. Our study found that the QuickVue Influenza A+B test performed as well in a developing country primary healthcare facility setting as in developed country settings.