EIA (An enzyme immunoassay) useful in detecting enteroviral meningitis:

An enzyme immunoassay (EIA) for anti-enterovirus IgM antibodies in serum is a valuable tool in the diagnosis of enteroviral meningitis, a German team has reported in the Journal of Medical Virology (June). In a study of 43 patients with enterovirus meningitis confirmed by reverse transcription PCR, Dr Gisela Enders and colleagues at the Stuttgart Institut fur Virologie, Infektiologie und Epidemiologie found that the EIA was able to correctly identify the antibodies in 34% of the cases, compared with only 20% found by a complement fixation test. The EIA also identified three out of four meningitis patients in whom the virus was not detectable in cerebrospinal fluid samples.