Three hundred and fifty specimens from a selected group of hospital patients were tested for the presence of hepatitis B antigen (HB-Ag) by radioimmunoassay (RIA), micro-complement fixation test (CFT) and eounter-immunoelectrophoresis (CIEP).I~IA detected 82 (23.7 per cent), CFT 63 (18 per cent), and CIEP only 43 (12.2 per cent) HB-Ag positive sera.All sera found positive by CFT and CIEP were also positive by I~IA. No serum was found positive by CFT or CIEP that was negative by RIA.The problem of anticomplementary activity was solved by absorbing the sera with fluorocarbon instead of guinea pig complement.For our selected group, I~IA was the most sensitive method for the detection of HB-Ag in human sera, followed by CFT and CIEP.
An epidemic of gastroenteritis in a teaching hospital affected 57 patients and 69 staff over a 26-day period. The index case was a patient admitted with acute abdominal pain and diarrhea two days prior to the outbreak. The epidemic curve indicated personto-person transmission. The incubation period, duration and types of
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