Shows 100% specificity, detects all genotypes, according to the Ghana Study
A new Virology Journal paper reports the results of a study evaluating the use of our xTAG® Gastrointestinal Pathogen Panel (GPP) for detecting rotavirus in children in Ghana. The xTAG assay is a multiplexed molecular test for viral, parasitic, and bacterial nucleic acids in human stool specimens.
More Testing Options Needed
“Diagnostic performance of the Luminex xTAG gastrointestinal pathogens panel to detect rotavirus in Ghanaian children with and without diarrhoea” comes from lead author Amelie Leva, senior author Marcus Panning, and collaborators. In the paper, the team cites the need for more testing options for rotavirus, which “is a major public health threat responsible for a high disease burden in low-income countries.”
Following recent studies in Europe and the U.S., these scientists chose to evaluate the xTAG GPP assay in rural Ghana, which better represents the resource-limited areas where rotavirus incidence is highest. They tested 682 stool samples collected from children in Ghana in 2007 and 2008, half of them with diarrhea and half without. xTAG results were compared to the reference assay, a rotavirus-specific qRT-PCR test.
Summary of Results
The study in Ghana reports excellent agreement between the test results, with the xTAG GPP assay yielding 100% specificity and 88.2% sensitivity. In addition, “the Luminex xTAG assay was able to detect all rotavirus genotypes present in the study,” the scientists note. Since the assay tests for other pathogens as well, the GPP data allowed the team to detect the most common pathogens in the samples: Shigella, Giardia lamblia, and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli.
“The GPP is able to detect a broad range of rotavirus genotypes prevalent in Ghana,” the scientists conclude. “Thus, pending its implementation in resource-constrained African countries the GPP assay might provide a valuable tool in the detection and surveillance of rotavirus.”
View the study online (open access): http://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12985-016-0588-1
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