Yerly S, Bouvier M, Rougemont A, Srivastava I, Perrin L H
Division of Infectious Diseases, Cantonal University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland.
Acta Trop. 1990 May;47(4):237-44. doi: 10.1016/0001-706x(90)90015-r.
Hypo- or ahaptoglobinemia, a common phenomenon in tropical countries, is mainly due to malaria induced hemolysis. We have recently shown that the prevalence of hypohaptoglobinemia is a useful epidemiologic indicator in malaria endemic areas. The main limitation to the practical utilisation of this indicator is the available methodologies. Here we describe a sandwich ELISA for the determination of haptoglobin concentrations which is easy to perform, sensitive and requires a minimal amount of equipment. With this test system it is possible to detect haptoglobin in serum at a lower limit of 100 micrograms/ml for 10(-4) dilutions and of less than 1 micrograms/ml for 10(-2) dilutions. This represents at least 200 fold increase in sensitivity as compared to radial immunodiffusion.
