COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LOOP MEDIATED ISOTHERMAL AMPLIFICATION ASSAY AND REVERSE TRANSCRIPTION-POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION TECHNIQUE IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF EBOLA VIRUS IN HUMAN BLOOD SAMPLES IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

Abstract

The not too distant past outbreak of Ebola viral disease (EVD) in West African countries was reported to be the worst since its emergence in 1976. A major challenge to the management and control of EVD is lack of rapid and accurate diagnosis. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) assay to the Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique for the diagnosis of Ebola virus (EBV) in human blood samples. EBV was confirmed in 5 (33%) and 16(12%) human blood samples by LAMP and RT-PCR, respectively. The sensitivity of LAMP assay was 83.3% while the specificity was 100% for LAMP when compared to RT-PCR. Findings from this study indicate that LAMP may be a rapid diagnostic tool that requires minimal expertise in developing countries in the diagnosis of this disease, which compares favourably to the gold standard RT-PCR. Findings from this study indicate that LAMP with necessary diagnostic improvements may be a rapid diagnostic tool that requires minimal expertise in developing countries in the diagnosis of this disease, if it is to compare favourably to the gold standard RT-PCR.