Evaluation of HBsAg carrier rate in acute viral hepatitis and high risk individuals using RPHA and ELISA.

A total of 600 individuals including 500 cases of hepatitis and 100 individuals at high risk for developing hepatitis were screened for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) using reverse passive haemagglutination (RPHA) and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). HBsAg carrier rate in clinically diagnosed cases of hepatitis was 38% and 32.4% by RPHA and ELISA respectively. In high risk individuals, the carrier rate was 14% by RPHA and 11% by ELISA. Taking ELISA as gold standard, RPHA showed 5.33% false positivity and 0.33% false negativity. The over all correlation between RPHA and ELISA was to the tune of 82.66%.