Evaluation of the rapid test for human rotavirus a in Thai children with acute gastroenteritis

Background: Rapid tests are widely used to detect rotavirus A; however, pediatricians are concerned whether the rapid test can still accurately detect the virus. Therefore, this study evaluated the performance of the rotavirus rapid test by comparing it to the one-step RT-PCR method. Methods: Seven hundred fifty-five stool samples were collected from children with acute diarrhea. All samples were processed immediately after arrival with the SD BIOLINE rota rapid test and one-step RT-PCR method. Results: The detection rates of rotavirus A were 40.79% and 41.91% for the rapid test and one-step RT-PCR, respectively. The rapid test had 93.57% sensitivity and 96.17% specificity. Most of the different genotypes of rotavirus A were detected with the SD rapid test. Conclusions: Although the rapid test is able to quickly give results, we found that it has high false positive and negative rates. Thus, other highly sensitive methods such as one-step RT-PCR are still required for true diagnosis.