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Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology, September 2002, p. 1014-1020, Vol. 9, No. 5
1071-412X/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/CDLI.9.5.1014-1020.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Comparison between the Skin Snip Test and Simple Dot Blot Assay as Potential Rapid Assessment Tools for Onchocerciasis in the Postcontrol Era in Ghana

Microbiology and Tumorbiology Center, Karolinska Institute and Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, S-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden,¹ Onchocerciasis Chemotherapy Research Centre, Hohoe Hospital, Hohoe, Ghana,² Centre for Biotechnology, Anna University, Chennai 600 25, India³

Received 7 January 2002/ Returned for modification 16 April 2002/ Accepted 28 May 2002

Successful control of onchocerciasis through mass distribution of ivermectin needs to be coupled with reliable, sensitive, specific, yet affordable diagnostic methods to monitor and ensure the efficacy of such measures. The effort put into the development of diagnostic methods for onchocerciasis that can substitute for or work in combination with the present "gold standard," the skin snip test, has resulted in the discovery of a number of immunogenic proteins with potential use as diagnostic tools in the postcontrol era. Most of these proteins have now been produced through recombinant DNA techniques. However, when costs are not a trivial issue, none of them have yet found their way into the areas where the disease still exists. In the present study, we have evaluated the performance of a simple dot blot assay which uses a mixture of native proteins designated PakF as a serious contender in the quest for a less invasive and more sensitive method to detect Onchocerca volvulus infection in areas with diverse endemicities. Our results indicate that the assay we propose is more sensitive than the skin snip test and shows high specificity, both characteristics required for a suitable tool for the monitoring of onchocerciasis in the postcontrol era.