Development of a new dipstick (Cholkit) for rapid detection of Vibrio cholerae O1 in acute watery diarrheal stools

摘要

Author summary Cholera is a severely dehydrating diarrheal disease that can lead to death if remains untreated. The incidence of case fatality is higher at the beginning of the outbreak. Diagnosis of cholera in the early stage of outbreak is a high public health priority. Although countries facing complex emergencies are more vulnerable to cholera outbreak, laboratory capacity in such settings is usually limited. To address this, here we report the development of a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) termed Cholkit for the diagnosis of cholera cases using stool and the assessment of its performance with those of microbial culture, PCR and Crystal VC assay, a commercially available dipstick using a latent class modeling approach.