A Study on the Clinical Application of a Rapid Diagnostic Reagent for Measles

Measles is an acute febrile rashes and infections caused by the measles virus belonging to the paramyxovirus. Each year more than twenty million peoples are affected to measles all over the world and 242,000 patients are leading to death. Traditionally the diagnosis of measles had been based on clinical symptoms in daily clinical practice. In recent years, many clinical cases do not show typical clinical manifestations and laboratory confirmation of the disease is definitely required. Lateral flow-based immuno-chromatography reagents are widely used for rapid point-of-care testing in Japanese general clinics, because it does not require special skills and facilities. We have developed a rapid diagnostic reagent for measles that employs the lateral flow-based immuno-chromatography. The correlation of the results between obtained by the diagnostic reagent and RT-PCR assay, the diagnostic reagent and detection of serum IgM antibodies, and laboratory diagnosis and clinical findings or symptoms was investigated. The correlation of the results between obtained by the diagnostic reagent and RT-PCR was the positive results that match rate of 45.5%, 100% negative match, correlation of the diagnostic reagent and detection of serum IgM antibodies positive matches to 55.6%, 100% negative match. In what had been diagnosed with measles in clinical findings so far identified with differential diagnosis of measles cases obtained by laboratory confirmation. It was concluded that the lateral flow-based rapid diagnostic reagent for measles was useful in general clinics.