Chikungunya virus has tendency not to show in common serology test: Ganga Ram Hospital

The Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here said it had recently found that the Chikungunya virus has a tendency not to show itself in the Chikungunya Igm serology test while it shows up during the RT-PCR test only, which the Hospital has been using it for the suspected samples.

Currently many of the hospitals in Delhi have been performing the Igm serology test, which is probably the reason why a lot of hospitals have not been able to confirm the presence of Chikungunya.

"This particular virus of Chikungunya has a tendency not to show itself in Chikungunya in the Igm serology test. Infact, in the last 10 days we applied Chikungunya Igm serology test in 385 samples and none of them were positive where as when we applied RT-PCR in 524 samples, a total of 293 samples came positive," said Chand Wattal, Chairman of the Microbiology department at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

The RT-PCR test is being used by a very few hospitals currently in the national capital.

Ganga Ram Hospital has reported four deaths in last 24 hours due to various complications triggered due to Chikungunya. Delhi has witnessed a total of five deaths caused by the disease so far.

--IANS

rup/vd