Comparative Evaluation of Rapid Diagnostic Test and Elisa Technique in Screening Donors for HIV and Syphilis in Some Blood Banks in Bayelsa State, Nigeria
Abstract
Blood transfusion is an important component of health care; hence, the screening of blood donors for transfusion-transmissible infections. This study compared rapid diagnostic methods with ELISA assay in the screening of blood donors for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and syphilis in some selected blood banks in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 160 prospective blood donors of the Federal Medical Center, Yenagoa and Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital. Blood samples were taken from participants and examined by serological methods and ELISA. SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the data and chi-square test was used to determine associations at a significance level of p ≤ 0.05. For HIV, the routine serological method detected 12 reactive samples whereas 22 reactive samples were detected by ELISA. 148 and 138 samples respectively were found to be non-reactive for HIV. The difference was not statistically significant (χ 2 = 1.645, df = 1, p = 0.201). For syphilis 6 samples were reactive by routine method as compared to 20 by ELISA with no statistically significant difference (χ 2 =3.915, df=1, p=0.079). The sensitivity of the routine serological method was 68.75% for HIV and 58.82% for syphilis, with ELISA as the comparator. The results indicate that some of the ELISA positive specimens were not detected by the routine serological methods tested. The study emphasises the significance of sensitive and validated screening methods and suitable testing algorithms in blood banks to mitigate the risks of undetected HIV and syphilis infections in donated blood. Key words; Blood donors, HIV, Syphilis, Rapid diagnistic test, ELISA, Transfusion transmissible infections, blood screening.
Keywords
; Blood donorsHIVSyphilisRapid diagnistic testELISATransfusion transmissible infectionsblood screening.
References
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