Assessment of Immunochromatograohy Test and ELISA for Detection of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen (HBsAg) among Blood Donors in Khartoum State

Abstract

This is a descriptive cross sectional study. It was conducted among blood donors in Khartoum State, (National Public Health Laboratory), during the period from March to October (2014) on a total of ninety one subjects (n=91) to compare sensitivity and specificity of immunochromatographic test and ELISA in detecting Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). All subjects examined in this study were males, (3.3%) of blood donors were positive for HBsAg, when tested by ICT, whereas it was increased to (4.4%) by ELISA procedure ran on the same serum samples. There was one false negative result when tested by ICT. Total of 13 blood donors were previous blood transfusion, one of them (7.7%) was positive for HBsAg when tested by ELISA. This revealed no statistical significance (P > 0.05). The commonest age group infected was from 31-40 year (2.2%) and low rate infection was identified among both age groups 18-30 year and 41-50 year (1.1%). The mean seroprevalence of HBV calculated from both tests was (3.9%).The result obtained showed that ICT technique has 75% sensitivity and 100 % specificity for detecting HBsAg, while ELISA revealed 100% sensetivity and 100% specificity. Results showed that the ICT used in this study for HBsAg screening was less sensitive when compared with ELISA.