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COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF RAPID IMMUNOCHROMATOGRAPHIC TEST (ICT) AND ENZYME LINKED IMMUNO SORBENT ASSAY (ELISA) TESTS TO DETECT ANTI-HCV ANTIBODY AMONG PATIENTS UNDERGOING HAEMODIALYSIS

Introduction: Over the years HCV infection has proved to be one of the leading causes of public health issue as a result of high morbidity and
mortality rate worldwide. Hence prevention or early detection has proved to be of great use to tackle the disease. Since the introduction of rapid
screening assays, they have been used widely worldwide. Hence this study was conducted to compare rapid ICT test with ELISA for the effective
detection of anti-HCV antibodies in patients on haemodialysis (HD). Material and methods: A total of 109 HD patients suffering from chronic
kidney disease were recruited. This study was conducted from July 2019 to March 2022. Sera of all the patients was tested for anti HCV antibodies
by rapid ICT and further tested by ELISA. Results: In our study results obtained show that the seroprevalence of anti-HCV was 26.6% i.e. 29
patients via rapid ICT and 35.8% i.e. 39 patients via ELISA depicting a signicant difference of sensitivity and specicity of ELISA over ICT
testing. Conclusion: The results indicated that the rapid ICTkits for HCV have a limited efciency and should be backed by superior supplemental
methods like ELISAand PCR where possible.