No serological evidence for Zika virus infection and low specificity for anti-Zika virus ELISA in malaria positive individuals among pregnant women from Madagascar in 2010

PLoS One. 2017 May 16;12(5):e0176708. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176708. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

It was previously reported that a malaria infection may interfere with the specificity of a commercial ELISA test against Zika virus (ZIKV). We analyzed 1,216 plasma samples from healthy, pregnant women collected in two sites in Madagascar in 2010 for ZIKV antibodies using a commercial ELISA and for Plasmodium infection by PCR. This screen revealed six putative ZIKV-positive samples by ELISA. These results could not be confirmed by indirect immunofluorescence assays or virus neutralization tests. Four of these six samples were also positive for P. falciparum. We noted that the frequency of malaria positivity was higher in ZIKV-ELISA positive samples (50% and 100% in the two study sites) than ZIKV-negative samples (17% and 10%, respectively), suggesting that malaria may have led to false ZIKV-ELISA positives.

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies, Neutralizing / immunology
  • Antibodies, Viral / immunology
  • Coinfection*
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay
  • Female
  • Geography
  • Humans
  • Madagascar / epidemiology
  • Malaria / diagnosis
  • Malaria / epidemiology*
  • Malaria / parasitology
  • Neutralization Tests
  • Population Surveillance
  • Pregnancy
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Seroepidemiologic Studies
  • Zika Virus Infection / diagnosis
  • Zika Virus Infection / epidemiology*
  • Zika Virus Infection / immunology
  • Zika Virus* / immunology

Substances

  • Antibodies, Neutralizing
  • Antibodies, Viral

Grants and funding

This study was financed by in house resources of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.