Seroepidemiology for Enteric Fever: Emerging Approaches and Opportunities

Safe and effective typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) are available, but many countries lack the high-resolution data needed to prioritize TCV introduction to the highest-risk communities. Here we discuss seroepidemiology—an approach using antibody response data to characterize infection burden—as a potential tool to fill this data gap. Serologic tests for typhoid have existed for over a hundred years, but only recently were antigens identified that were sensitive and specific enough to use as epidemiologic markers. These antigens, coupled with new methodological developments, permit estimating seroincidence—the rate at which new infections occur in a population—from cross-sectional serosurveys. These new tools open up many possible applications for enteric fever seroepidemiology, including generating high-resolution surveillance data, monitoring vaccine impact, and integrating with other serosurveillance initiatives. Challenges remain, including distinguishing Salmonella Typhi from Salmonella Paratyphi infections and accounting for reinfections. Enteric fever seroepidemiology can be conducted at a fraction of the cost, time, and sample size of surveillance blood culture studies and may enable more efficient and scalable surveillance for this important infectious disease.