Abstract
This study was designed to establish an efficient, highly sensitive, and rapid diagnostic system based on silver amplification for influenza infection. Nasopharyngeal swabs from 629 patients were used to compare the performances of influenza diagnostic kits (manual method) and a highly sensitive influenza diagnostic system (automated method). The relationships between the test results and clinical factors were also investigated. Negative results for the manual method and positive results for the automated method tended to occur for adults up to 6 hours after the onset of fever. However, there was no relationship between a positive outcome and elapsed time of the fever in children. The 162 positive cases (both manual and automated) manifested as high fever, headache, cough, runny nose, arthralgia and muscle pain, and these symptoms were significantly worse than the 442 negative cases. Another 25 cases (manual negative and automated positive) had no significant symptoms. The 162 positive cases had only high fever worse than the 25 manual negative and automated positive cases. The results indicate that the highly sensitive system is useful for adult patients with fever of less than 6 hours duration and for children, and for patients with poorly defined high fever. These characteristics are very useful for infection control, especially in an epidemic, so we use the automated method for inpatients and staff members.
