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. 2016 Oct 15;214(suppl 3):S258-S262.
doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiw296. Epub 2016 Aug 31.

Ebola Virus Disease Diagnostics, Sierra Leone: Analysis of Real-time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Values for Clinical Blood and Oral Swab Specimens

Bobbie R Erickson  1 , Tara K Sealy  1 , Tim Flietstra  1 , Laura Morgan  1 , Brima Kargbo  2 , Victor E Matt-Lebby  2 , Aridth Gibbons  1 , Ayan K Chakrabarti  1 , James Graziano  3 , Lance Presser  1 , Mike Flint  1 , Brian H Bird  1 , Shelley Brown  1 , John D Klena  4 , Dianna M Blau  5 , Aaron C Brault  6 , Jessica A Belser  7 , Johanna S Salzer  8 , Amy J Schuh  1 , Michael Lo  1 , Marko Zivcec  1 , Rachael A Priestley  9 , Meredith Pyle  10 , Christin Goodman  6 , Scott Bearden  11 , Brian R Amman  1 , Alison Basile  6 , Éric Bergeron  1 , Michael D Bowen  12 , Kimberly A Dodd  13 , Molly M Freeman  14 , Laura K McMullan  1 , Christopher D Paddock  9 , Brandy J Russell  6 , Angela J Sanchez  15 , Jonathan S Towner  1 , David Wang  7 , Galina E Zemtsova  9 , Robyn A Stoddard  3 , Maryann Turnsek  14 , Lisa Wiggleton Guerrero  1 , Shannon L Emery  16 , Janae Stovall  6 , Markus H Kainulainen  1 , Jamie L Perniciaro  9 , Slavica Mijatovic-Rustempasic  12 , Gulchekhra Shakirova  17 , Jörn Winter  16 , Christopher Sexton  11 , Feng Liu  7 , Kimetha Slater  9 , Raydel Anderson  18 , Lauren Andersen  19 , Cheng-Feng Chiang  1 , Wen-Pin Tzeng  7 , Samuel J Crowe  20 , Matthew J Maenner  21 , Christina F Spiropoulou  1 , Stuart T Nichol  1 , Ute Ströher  1
Affiliations

Ebola Virus Disease Diagnostics, Sierra Leone: Analysis of Real-time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction Values for Clinical Blood and Oral Swab Specimens

Bobbie R Erickson et al. J Infect Dis. .

Abstract

During the Ebola virus outbreak of 2013-2016, the Viral Special Pathogens Branch field laboratory in Sierra Leone tested approximately 26 000 specimens between August 2014 and October 2015. Analysis of the B2M endogenous control Ct values showed its utility in monitoring specimen quality, comparing results with different specimen types, and interpretation of results. For live patients, blood is the most sensitive specimen type and oral swabs have little diagnostic utility. However, swabs are highly sensitive for diagnostic testing of corpses.

Keywords: Ebola virus; West Africa; endogenous control; housekeeping gene; qRT-PCR.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors do not report any conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Viral Special Pathogens Branch (VSPB) field laboratory blood and oral swab specimen analysis. A) Paired blood and oral swab specimen Ct values for B2M and EBOV VP40 from 52 live patients. Specimen order was adjusted based on result. Neg refers to a negative B2M or EBOV VP40 result and no value is assigned. B) Non-parametric kernel density estimation (KDE) was used to generate the empirical distribution function for B2M Ct values for a subset of paired blood and oral swab specimens and for the total blood and oral swab populations. C) Distribution by KDE of EBOV VP40 Ct values for blood and oral swab specimens, and distribution of a subset of blood specimens with a known outcome and a fatal outcome. D) Distribution by KDE of Ebola VP40 Ct values for each day post onset of symptoms.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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