Measles diagnosis has thus far been based on
clinical symptoms in daily clinical practice. However, atypical cases are not uncommon; a simple and rapid method of
measles diagnosis is clinically required. Lateral flow-based rapid diagnosis
reagents are widely used for point-of-care testing in Japanese clinics, because it does not require special skills and facilities. We have developed a rapid diagnostic
reagent for
measles that employs the lateral
flow method. The lower limit of detection of this
reagent was almost the same for
recombinant proteins of
wild-type and
vaccine strain, at 5.1 x 10(3) copies/test. This lower limit of detection and the specificity of this
reagent suggest its efficacy for the diagnosis of
measles infection.
