Calculating the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth infection through pooling of stool samples: Choosing and optimizing the pooling strategy
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Authors
Truscott, James
Dunn, Julia

PAPAIAKOVOU, MARINA

Schaer, Fabian

Werkman, Marleen

Littlewood, T

Walson, JL

Anderson, Roy

Issue date
2019-03-21Submitted date
2019-03-30Subject Terms
DNA extractionCost-effectiveness analysis
Soil-transmitted helminthiases
Polymerase chain reaction
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Prevalence is a common epidemiological measure for assessing soil-transmitted helminth burden and forms the basis for much public-health decision-making. Standard diagnostic techniques are based on egg detection in stool samples through microscopy and these techniques are known to have poor sensitivity for individuals with low infection intensity, leading to poor sensitivity in low prevalence populations. PCR diagnostic techniques offer very high sensitivities even at low prevalence, but at a greater cost for each diagnostic test in terms of equipment needed and technician time and training. Pooling of samples can allow prevalence to be estimated while minimizing the number of tests performed. We develop a model of the relative cost of pooling to estimate prevalence, compared to the direct approach of testing all samples individually. Analysis shows how expected elative cost depends on both the underlying prevalence in the population and the size of the pools constructed. A critical prevalence level (approx. 31%) above which pooling is never cost effective, independent of pool size. When no prevalence information is available, there is no basis on which to choose between pooling and testing all samples individually. We recast our model of relative cost in a Bayesian framework in order to investigate how prior information about prevalence in a given population can be used to inform the decision to choose either pooling or full testing. Results suggest that if prevalence is below 10%, a relatively small exploratory prevalence survey (10–15 samples) can be sufficient to give a high degree of certainty that pooling may be relatively cost effective.Citation
Truscott JE, Dunn JC, Papaiakovou M, Schaer F, Werkman M, Littlewood DTJ, et al. (2019) Calculating the prevalence of soiltransmitted helminth infection through pooling of stool samples: Choosing and optimizing the pooling strategy. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 13(3): e0007196Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)Journal
PLOS Neglected Tropical DiseasesType
Journal ArticleItem Description
© 2019 Truscott et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.EISSN
1935-2735ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1371/journal.pntd.0007196
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