Evaluation of Three Rapid Screening Tests for Detection of Hepatitis C Antibodies on Mass Scale

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a leading health problem across the globe. Only 20% of HCV positive individuals know their positive disease status. Effective HCV screening tests are required to screen both general and high-risk populations and identify the silent cases of HCV. In this study, we analyzed the performance of three rapid HCV screening kits. A total of 300 subjects from three populations groups, were enrolled from Rawalpindi and Islamabad cities of Pakistan. The three groups were blood donors (n = 50), pregnant women (n = 50), and hepatitis C positive individuals (200). Blood samples of all the individuals were screened on three rapid screening tests for anti-HCV: CTK Biotech's OnSite HCV Ab Rapid Test, SD Bioline One Step anti-HCV test, and Intec Products Advanced Quality Rapid Anti-HCV Test. The performance of these three rapid tests was also compared with the Roche Anti-HCV II test performed on the cobas 601 platform based on the electrochemiluminescence immunoassay principle. In total, 300 samples were analyzed in this study, out of which 208 were positive for anti-HCV positive and 92 were negative for anti-HCV. The sensitivities of the Intec product, SD Bioline, and CTK Biotech were 98.56%, 97.59%, and 95.67%, respectively. The specificity of SD Bioline and CTK Biotech were 100%, whereas Intec products showed 98.91% specificity. The positive predictive value (PPV) of SD Bioline and CTK Biotech was 100%, but Intec products showed 99.51% PPV. The negative predictive values of the Intec product, SD Bioline, and CTK Biotech were 96.80%, 94.84%, and 91.09%, respectively. There is a dire need to speed up HCV screening to achieve the targets in the World Health Organization global viral hepatitis strategy (2016-2021). The rapid tests evaluated in this study can be used in hepatitis screening on much larger scales.