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. 2019 Jun;25(6):1153-1160.
doi: 10.3201/eid2506.180361.

Performance of 2 Commercial Serologic Tests for Diagnosing Zika Virus Infection

Performance of 2 Commercial Serologic Tests for Diagnosing Zika Virus Infection

Séverine Matheus et al. Emerg Infect Dis. 2019 Jun.

Abstract

Reliable serologic tests are needed for diagnosis and surveillance of Zika virus infection. We evaluated the Euroimmun and Dia.Pro serologic tests for detection of Zika virus IgM and IgG by using a panel of 199 samples from a region endemic for flaviviruses. Kinetics of Zika virus antibodies were monitored from 300 sequential specimens sampled over a period of 10 months after infection. We observed suboptimal performance; sensitivity for Zika virus IgM was low, especially in the Euroimmun assay (49%), whereas IgM could be detected for months with the Dia.pro assay. The specificity of the Zika virus IgG assays was also low, especially that of Dia.Pro (62%); findings were strongly influenced by the epidemiologic context. These results highlight the complexity of serologic diagnosis of Zika virus infection in regions endemic for flaviviruses. Accurate analysis of the performance of assays is required to adapt and interpret algorithms.

Keywords: French Guiana; Zika virus; antibody kinetics; cross reactions; diagnosis; sensitivity; serology; specificity; viruses.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Kinetics of Zika virus IgM and IgG as determined with Euroimmun and Dia.Pro kits for patient samples collected in the first 10 months after infection, by time interval. A, B) Percent positive for Zika virus IgM (A) and IgG (B). Values are given with binomial proportion CI). C, D) Overall time course of mean signal-to-cutoff ratios of Zika virus IgM (C) and IgG (D). Values are shown with SEs. The number of patients sampled is provided for each time interval.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Individual time-course analyses of Zika virus IgM and IgG signal-to-cutoff ratios obtained by using Euroimmun and Dia.Pro kits for 18 patients for whom 5 or more sequential samples were available.

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