EVALUATION OF A STRATEGY TO DETECT ACTIVE HCV INFECTION USING A COMBINATION OF ELISA & TRI DOT ASSAY

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the primary etiologic agent of liver cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV elevated infection rates are mostly due to the lack of an accurate and accessible screening and diagnosis, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Proper strategy will improve actual screening and treatment programs and help to reach HCVelimination. Methods: This cross-sectional study consist of 103 subjects were included in our study who attended Dept of Microbiology, Medical College, Kolkata for anti HCV antibody detection. These include various groups who are at high risk of exposure to HCV and also low risk population between February 2018 and November 2018. A predesigned and pretested questionnaire was used to collect data and the data was summarized using descriptive statistics. Template was generated in MS excel sheet and analysis was done on SPSS 20.0 software. Results: Out of the 103 patients, 59.2% were male and 40.8% were female. Among 64 patients who were HCV-ELISAreactive only 24 were found to be having HCV-RNAin their blood 37.5%. Specicity of ELISAwas 56.52%. Specicity of ELISAand TRIDOTcombined was 100%. Among 2 IDU patients positive by ELISA(both were negative in TRI-DOT). HCV-RNAcould be found in one (01). Positive predictive value of ELISAin this group in 50%. Conclusions:Combination of ELISA& Tri dot assay plays an import role to detect active HCVinfection among patients.