Seroprevalence of Rubella Virus-specific Antibodies in Women and the Diagnostic Efficacy of Enzyme-linked Immunoassay and Rapid Immunochromatographic Tests

Introduction Rubella is an infectious disease caused by the Rubella virus. The disease was previously called German measles and is transmitted through respiratory aerosols. Rubella causes both clinical and subclinical infections in children and young adults. Rubella virus has teratogenic capabilities and may cause severe complications in the fetuses of women who acquire Rubella viral infection during their pregnancy. The present study aims to evaluate the seroprevalence of anti-Rubella virus immunoglobulin (Ig) G and IgM antibodies in both pregnant and non-pregnant women and assess the diagnostic efficacy of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and rapid immunochromatographic tests. Methods The study included 240 females in the age range of 16-45 years. The study subjects included both pregnant women and non-pregnant women. After informed consent, 5 milliliters of blood was collected from each participant, and serum was separated and tested for the presence of antibodies (IgG and IgM) against the Rubella virus using both the traditional ELISA (Delta Biologicals, Pvt. Ltd., China) and a rapid ELISA-immunochromatographic test (ICT) (Span Biotech. Ltd., China). The data collected were systematically entered into Microsoft Excel sheets (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington) and were analyzed using SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 17.0, 2008 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois). Results The study revealed an overall seroprevalence of 31.66% for Rubella-specific IgG and IgM antibodies. Out of the 125 pregnant women included in the study, 49 (39.20%) were seropositive for Rubella IgG antibodies, and among the 115 non-pregnant women tested, 24 (20.86%) were positive for Rubella IgG antibodies. Four (5.26%) of the 76 seropositive women revealed IgM antibodies. The sensitivities of both the ELISA (40.61%) and rapid immunochromatographic (39.20%) tests were observed to be low and the specificities of both methods were similar (79.13%). Conclusion The seroprevalence of Rubella-specific IgG antibodies was observed to be low as compared to the other regions of India. The low seroprevalence may predispose pregnant women to Rubella viral infection and may lead to increased incidences of congenital Rubella syndrome (CRS). Both the ELISA and immunochromatographic tests showed low sensitivity and similar specificities.