Abstract:
Schistosomiasis is considered to be one of the major public health problems in Sudan
and it was recorded as an ancient disease in the country by the ancient Egyptians.
The present study was conducted in individuals resident in New Halfa, an area where
some agricultural schemes are existed.
A commercial indirect hemagglutination (IHA) test using erythrocytes coated with
Schistosoma
mansoni
adult
worm
antigens
(WA)
and an
enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with S. bovis antigen were assessed for their use in
serodiagnosis of schistosomiasis and the sensitivity of the tests was evaluated with sera
from 100 parasitologically-comfirmed positive patients with proven S. mansoni
infection.
The results of this study revealed that the sensitivity for indirect hemoagglutination test
was 63% and the specificity was 87.5%, while the sensitivity for ELISA was 19% and
the specificity was 100%.
Individuals below 20 years showed highest prevalence of infection compared with
those of other ages which demonstrate the susceptibility of children to re-infection
more than adults.
In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that IHA and S.bovis antigen/ELISA
are each sensitive and specific serological tests that are easy to use for the diagnosis of
S.mansoni. The combined use of these two tests enables the serological diagnosis of
schistosomiasis to be achieved with reasonable degrees of both sensitivity and
specificity
