Performance of Urine Reagent Strips in Detecting the Presence and Estimating the Prevalence and Intensity of Infection

Overview

Journal Microorganisms

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2022 Oct 27

PMID 36296338

Authors

Abraham Degarege

Abebe Animut

Yohannes Negash

Berhanu Erko

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The performance of the urine reagent strips (URS) in detecting the presence and estimating the intensity of infection was evaluated using urine filtration microscopy as a reference standard. Urine samples collected from 1288 school-age children living in five villages of the Afar and one village in the Gambella Regional States of Ethiopia between October 2021 and April 2022 were examined using urine filtration and URS. The prevalence of infection was 31.6% based on urine filtration and 32.1% using URS. Using results of the urine filtration as a reference, the sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive values, and accuracy of the URS in detecting egg-positive urine specimens were 73.7%, 87.8%, 87.1%, and 82.8%, respectively. Sensitivity increased significantly with an increase in the urine egg count. Specificity was greater in low prevalence settings and among children aged 5-9 years. The level of hematuria detected was trace (19.1%), weak (30.2%), moderate (36.0%), or high (14.7%). The log odds of showing higher-level hematuria significantly increased as the number of egg counts in urine increased. In conclusion, URS remains good in rapidly screening individuals for infection, but the sensitivity of the test could be lower, particularly when the intensity of the infection is light.

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