Evaluation of two commercially available chikungunya virus IgM enzyme-linked immunoassays (ELISA) in a setting of concomitant transmission of chikungunya, dengue and Zika viruses

• Published in: International journal of infectious diseases Vol. 91; pp. 38 - 43
• Main Authors: Kikuti, Mariana, Tauro, Laura B., Moreira, Patrícia S.S., Nascimento, Leile Camila J., Portilho, Moyra M., Soares, Gúbio C., Weaver, Scott C., Reis, Mitermayer G., Kitron, Uriel, Ribeiro, Guilherme S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canada Elsevier Ltd 01.02.2020; Elsevier
• Subjects: Accuracy; Adolescent; Adult; Antibodies, Viral - blood; Brazil; Chikungunya Fever - diagnosis; Chikungunya Fever - immunology; Chikungunya Fever - transmission; Chikungunya virus; Chikungunya virus - immunology; Dengue - transmission; Dengue Virus - immunology; Diagnostic performance; ELISA; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Female; Humans; Immunoglobulin M - blood; Male; Middle Aged; Sensitivity and Specificity; Young Adult; Zika Virus Infection - transmission; Brazil; Sensitivity and specificity; Diagnostic performance; Accuracy; Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; Chikungunya virus; ELISA
• ISSN: 1201-9712; 1878-3511
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2019.11.001

•Inbios and Euroimmun CHIKV IgM ELISAs had low sensitivities for acute sera, as expected.•For convalescent sera, both kits had high sensitivities (>92%).•Convalescent sera specificity was 91% for the Inbios and 84% for the Euroimmun kit.•The Euroimmun kit may yield more false-positive cases if CHIKV circulation is low. To evaluate the diagnostic performance of the Inbios (Seattle, US) and Euroimmun (Luebeck, Germany) chikungunya virus (CHIKV) IgM enzyme-linked immunoassays (ELISAs). We evaluated the tests’ accuracy on sera from 372 patients enrolled in an acute febrile illness surveillance study performed in Salvador, Brazil from Sept/2014 to Jul/2016, a period of simultaneous CHIKV, dengue (DENV), and Zika (ZIKV) virus transmission. We assessed the sensitivity on acute and paired convalescent sera from RT-PCR-confirmed CHIKV cases (collected at median one and 19 days post-onset of symptoms, respectively), and the specificity on sera of RT-PCR-confirmed DENV and ZIKV cases, and on negative patients. The Inbios and Euroimmun tests’ sensitivities for acute samples were 4.0% and 10.3%, while for convalescent samples they were 92.4% and 96.9%, respectively. Overall, Inbios IgM ELISA specificities for acute and convalescent samples were 97.7% and 90.5%, respectively, and Euroimmun specificities were 88.5% and 83.9%, respectively. Both tests presented high sensitivity for convalescent samples. However, the Euroimmun test returned more equivocal results and presented a slightly lower specificity, which might result in a higher rate of false positives if the test is used in scenarios of low CHIKV transmission, when the chance of CHIKV infection is lower.