The Use of Immunochromatographic Technique for Rotavirus Detection: Experience from a Tertiary Care Hospital in Central Greece

Despite the significant medical advances which have taken place in the last decades, acute diarrhoea cases remain a public health issue of major significance, with gastroenteritis agents being associated with severe symptoms in adults and high morbidity in infants and children. Regarding rotaviruses, while children are the predominant victims of rotavirus infection, adults (often caretakers or parents of these children) may experience the same symptoms of fever, vomiting, and non-bloody diarrhoea. Three different routine schemes for the detection of rotaviruses in archived stool samples were evaluated in terms of diagnostic performance. A total of 640 archived stool samples were included in the study. The samples were screened with three different techniques: a commercial rapid immunochromatographic test, a modified in-house conventional one-step reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) screen protocol, and a com-mer-cial one-step real-time PCR kit. Technical aspects and considerations are discussed.