title: Assessment of serological assays for the diagnosis of HIV-1 infections.
abstract: Many serologic techniques are available for the detection of HIV-1 infection, but their diagnostic performances have been reported to vary depending on the testing situations. We evaluated eight different serologic assays for detecting HIV-1 antibody in sera from suspected high risk groups in North and East Africa. These included: one ELISA bead assay, three indirect ELISAs, two competitive ELISA assays, one gelatin agglutination assay and a recombinant dot-blot assay. A panel of 38 HIV-1 antibody confirmed positive human sera and a panel of 60 HIV negative sera were tested. All sera yielding discordant results were retested for verification of reactivity. Among the different assays evaluated for detecting HIV-1 antibody, sensitivities ranged from 0.919 to 0.974 and test efficiencies ranged from 94.2-98.9%. All assays failed to detect at least one western blot confirmed positive serum; three tests (Organon, DuPont recombinant and Serodia) produced only one false-negative result. Five of the eight assays did not produce any false-positive results. The Organon viral lysate and the DuPont recombinant ELISAs exhibited the best overall performance (test efficiency = 98.9%).
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit #3, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Danaby
authors.forename: N T
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Constantine
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Daise
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Watts
mesh_terms: D000351:Africa, Eastern / Q000453:epidemiology; D000352:Africa, Northern / Q000453:epidemiology; D000372:Agglutination Tests / Q000592:standards*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000097:blood* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting / Q000592:standards*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity