Validation of Two Rapid Serological Tests for Human Brucellosis Detection

As brucellosis have several non-specific clinical phases, the search for reliable diagnosis of the disease is necessary. Therefore, for serological determination of brucellosis, rapid immunofiltration tests designated as ERIFA and NERIFA and ELISAs were developed and evaluated for diagnostic purposes. The sera were collected from Clinical Microbiology Department of Kars State Hospital between 2007 and 2009. These sera were used for determination of sensitivity of ELISAs, ERIFA and NERIFA in comparison to rose bengal test, Brucellacapt and serum agglutination tests. In the study, highest sensitivity was detected by ELISA, ERIFA and NERIFA, respectively. Specificity was highest with ELISA as 95.2% and with both ERIFA and NERIFA as 92.9% and the lowest was with RBT as 90.5%. When two ELISAs were compared based on the IgG sensitivity, there was no difference (p0.05) when IgM was accepted as a criteria for comparison. The current study reports the first evaluation of ERIFA and NERIFA in human beings. It is concluded that the RIFA models can be accepted as an ancillary test for diagnosis of human brucellosis in endemic countries.