Performance of the SD Bioline rapid diagnostic test as a good alternative to the detection of Human African Trypanosomiasis in Cameroon

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundThe management of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), caused by Trypanosoma brucei gambiense relies on case detection. As part of this, the routine screening by the card agglutination test for trypanosomiasis (CATT) is the critical step before parasitological confirmation. Individual rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have recently been developed for the serodiagnosis of HAT.ObjectiveThe objective of the current study was to assess the input of SD Bioline HAT on the serological screening of human African trypanosomiasis in Cameroonian foci.MethodsBlood samples were collected during the surveys in the foci of Campo, Yokadouma and Fontem between June 2014 and January 2015. Diagnostic performance indicators such as sensitivity (Se) and specificity (Sp) of SD Bioline HAT was determined from the CATT, used as gold standard for the detection of specific antibodies of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense.ResultsA total of 88 samples were tested in Campo 59.1% (n=52), Yokadouma 31.8% (n=28) and Fontem 9.1% (n=8). The gender distribution was 61.4% (n=54) male and 38.4% (n=34) female, with an average age of 35.4 ± 19.0 years. The overall seroprevalence was 11.4% (95% CI: 6.3- 19.7) with the CATT method and 18.2% (95% CI: 11.5- 27.5) with the SD Bioline HAT RDT method in probed foci. The Se and Sp were 80.0% and 89.7% respectively for the SD Bioline HAT.ConclusionThis study showed that the overall performance of the SD Bioline HAT was close to that of the CATT, with significant specificity in the serological detection of HAT.