Evaluation of the point-of-care Becton Dickinson Veritor™ Rapid influenza diagnostic test in Kenya, 2013-2014

We evaluated the performance of the Becton Dickinson Veritor™ System Flu A + B rapid influenza diagnostic test (RIDT) to detect influenza viruses in respiratory specimens from patients enrolled at five surveillance sites in Kenya, a tropical country where influenza seasonality is variable. Nasal swab (NS) and nasopharyngeal (NP)/oropharyngeal (OP) swabs were collected from patients with influenza like illness and/or severe acute respiratory infection. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the RIDT using NS specimens were evaluated against nasal swabs tested by real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). The performance parameter results were expressed as 95% confidence intervals (CI) calculated using binomial exact methods, with P < 0.05 considered significant. Two-sample Z tests were used to test for differences in sample proportions. Analysis was performed using SAS software version 9.3. From July 2013 to July 2014, 3,569 patients were recruited, of which 78.7% were aged