Current Global Status of Dengue Diagnostics

Aims: Dengue Virus is a re-emerging infectious disease that is transmitted through mosquitos. Dengue is a significant health concern because of the number of people it affects globally. Clinical diagnosis of dengue is not possible because the symptoms are similar to other febrile-diseases. Therefore, the only way to truly diagnose dengue is via laboratory methods. Many diagnostics tests exist to accomplish this; however, these tests have disadvantages. Rapid, point-of-care, commercially available diagnostic test kits have come onto the market to bridge the gap for those without high tech laboratories and personnel. This paper extends the knowledge of a meta-analysis conducted in 2011 on the performance of commercially available diagnostic tests. The purpose of this review was to compare and contrast the accuracy of commercial dengue diagnostic tests.

Study Design: Systematic Review and Analysis.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Global Health, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA between August 2013 and July 2014.

Methodology: A literature review was conducted using multiple database searches using the search terms “dengue diagnostics” and “evaluation”.

Results: Only articles written in English evaluating the accuracy, via sensitivity and specificity, of commercially available diagnostics tests were included. Fifteen articles and a meta-analysis were included in this paper for review. Many diagnostic tests were evaluated in these articles. Bio-Rad’s STRIP was the most evaluated test. Most tests were evaluated once in a country which doesn’t create enough reliability to make any inferences. The best performing test across all studies and countries seems to be Bio-Rad’s NS1 STRIP.

Conclusion: Overall, these tests perform fairly well and more evaluation needs to occur to get a better idea of the true accuracy of the test.