Application of DIGFA, ELISA and IHA for the parallel detection of serum antibodies to Schistosoma japonicum of population in epidemic area of schistosomiasis

To explore application values of detection serum antibodies to Schistosoma japonicum of population in epidemic area of schistosomiasis by means of DIGFA, ELISA and IHA, these method of tests were used in parallel to detect the presence of anti-S.japonicum antibodies in the fecal eggs positive patients with schistosomiasis and patients with paragonimiasis, ancylostomiasis and ascariasis as well as the healthy individuals in non-epidemic area and the inhabitants of the epidemic area. It was found that the sensitivities of these three methods for the detection of Anti-S.japonicum antibodies in 100 cases of egg-positive patients were all to be 96.0% (96/100),and the specificities of them as demonstrated in 188 cases of healthy individuals and other three parasitic infections were 98.9%(186/188), 96.8% (182/188) and 97.3% (183/188) respectively. The positive rates of antibodies from inhabitants in epidemic area were 9.35% (102/1091), 11.54% (125/1083) and 11.00% (120/1091) respectively. No obvious difference was found among the results of these three methods. It is concluded that DIGFA,ELISA and IHA all show high sensitivity and specificity with a low rate of cross-reaction, and are suitable for the detection of anti-S.japonicum antibodies in the epidemic area.