Evaluation of The Three Commercially Available Elisa Test Kits for The Detection of Anti-Hiv Antibodies

Abstract

This study was carried out in NRCS, CBTS during March to September 2008vwith the objective to evaluate the commercially available ELISA based HIV detecting test kits. A total of 30 HIV positive serum samples (27 obtained from the study population and 3 provided by NRCS, CBTS) and 30 HIV negative serum samples from a total of 21,716 units of donated blood samples were used to evaluate 3 different HIV ELISA tests. Enzygnost Anti HIV1/2 Test kit with a sensitivity and specificity of 100% and 97.4% respectively was taken as a standard baseline test for evaluation. RecombiLISA was found to have 93.33% sensitivity and 100% specificity with PPV of 100% and NPV of 93.75%. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of EliscanTM HIV Advance was 100% was. The sensitivity of DETECT-HIVTM (v.2) was 96.7%, specificity was 100% with PPV of 100% and NPV of 96.8%. From the evaluation process EliscanTM HIV Advance was found to be equally sensitive and specific as Enzygnost while two other assays were less sensitive. The evaluation of commercially available test kits before introduction into the screening systems should be carried out mandatorily to minimize any possible risks associated with transfusion transmissible infections. Key words: