title: [Evaluation of the Widal test for diagnosing typhoid fever in Lebanon].
abstract: Typhoid fever is a major public health problem in developing countries. In Lebanon, where the sanitary infrastructure was severely damaged during the civil war, the high prevalence of typhoid fever creates a pressing need for a rapid and reliable diagnostic tool. To evaluate the diagnostic usefulness of the Widal test, patients with a positive blood culture for Salmonella typhi (n = 78) were compared to controls with fever due to another infection (n = 65) and with blood donors (n = 96). Discrimination between the patient group and the two control groups was best when an agglutinin O titer of 1/160 or more was used. With this cutoff, sensitivity was 67.9%; specificity was 93.8% versus the febrile controls and 100% versus the blood donors. These results suggest that despite its well-known limitations the Widal test remains a valuable tool for typhoid fever control in many developing countries.
authors.affiliation: Université Libanaise, Faculté de Santé Publique, Tripoli, Liban.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hamze
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Naboulsi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vincent
mesh_terms: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000097:blood; D001769:Blood / Q000382:microbiology; D001782:Blood Donors; D005334:Fever; D006801:Humans; D007861:Lebanon; D019081:O Antigens / Q000097:blood; D012485:Salmonella typhi / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014435:Typhoid Fever / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; C022863:H antigen; D019081:O Antigens
vernacular_title: Evaluation du test de Widal pour le diagnostic de la fièvre typhoïde au Liban.