[A direct immunogold-silver staining method for diagnosing hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome]

A direct immunogold-silver staining (D-IGSS) method with 5nm colloidal gold-labeled rabbit anti-HFRS IgG antibodies was employed to detect HFRS virus antigen in the cytoplasm of white blood cells from HFRS patients and compared with indirect immunofluorescence assay (I-IFA). The results showed as follows: 1. The positive rate (87.5%) of HFRSV antigen detected by D-IGSS was significantly higher than that (65.6%) detected by I-IFA. in the white blood cells (P<0.05); 2. With the D-IGSS method the positive rates of HFRSV antigen in white blood cells of finger and vein blood were 81.3% and 87.5% respectively (P>0.05) with no significant difference but finger blood smears is more simple. We belive the D-IGSS method can be widely used for early diagnosis of HFRS at basic-level hospitals.