Volume 18, Number 12—December 2012
Research
Diagnostic Assays for Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever
, Maria João Alves, Tatjana Avšič Županc, Silvia Bino, Sadegh Chinikar, Helen Karlberg, Gülay Korukluoğlu, Miša Korva, Masoud Mardani, Ali Mirazimi, Mehrdad Mousavi, Anna Papa, Ana Saksida, Batool Sharifi-Mood, Persofoni Sidira, Katerina Tsergouli, Roman Wölfel, Hervé Zeller, and Philippe DuboisTable 5
Operational characteristics of selected CCHF diagnostic assays*
| Operational characteristic |
Mean score
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VectoCrimea-CHF ELISA† | Crimean-Congo Fever Mosaic 2 IFA‡ | RealStar CCHFV RT-PCR Kit 1.2§ | CCHF2006 1.5 LCD Kit (26) | |
| Equipment¶ | ||||
|
Maintenance of equipment required |
0.8 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
|
Training for equipment required |
0.8 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.5 |
|
Additional equipment required |
0.8 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.8 |
| Technique | ||||
|
Clarity of instructions¶ |
1.0 | 0.7 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
|
Technical training required¶ |
0.8 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
|
Technical complexity# |
2.0 | 1.7 | 1.5 | 1.3 |
| Interpretation | ||||
|
Training required for result interpretation¶ |
1.0 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.8 |
|
Ease of interpretation of results# |
1.5 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Total score | 8.5/10 | 6.7/10 | 6.0/10 | 6.3/10 |
*CCHF, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; IFA, immunofluorescent assay; CCHFV, CCHF virus; RT-PCR, reverse transcription PCR; LCD, low-cost, low-density.
†Vector-Best, Novosibirsk, Russia.
‡Euroimmun, Luebeck, Germany.
§Altona-Diagnostics, Hamburg, Germany.
¶A score of 1 was attributed when instructions were sufficiently clear or when no specific training, no additional equipment, or no regular equipment maintenance were necessary.
#Score was attributed according to the degree of simplicity of the technique or interpretation: 2 if it was considered easy, 1 if it was considered acceptable, and 0 if it was considered difficult.
