Screening of apparently healthy individuals and people suspected to have typhoid for Salmonella typhi agglutinins

Abstract

A total of two hundred and fifty blood samples were obtained from both apparently healthy individuals and people who came to Federal University of Technology, Akure, health Centre with the complaints of fever, headache, fatigue, abdominal discomfort.  One hundred samples were from the healthy individuals while 150 were from those who came to the Health Centre for treatment.  These samples were screened for the presence of antibodies to Salmonella typhi using commercially available Widal Reagent kit (Chromatest), of the 100 apparently healthy individuals screened, 10 (10%) had a reciprocal antibody titre of 40, 49 (49%) had 20, while 41 (41%) had no antibodies to Salmonella typhi.  Of the 150 individuals with typhoid like symptoms that were screened, 30 (20%) had a reciprocal antibody titreof 80 and 3 (2%) had 160.  The titres of those who came for treatment fall within the range of antibody titres diagnostic for typhoid fever which are titers ³ 1:80 while the titers of the apparently healthy individuals fall within the range not diagnosis for the disease.  The rate of occurrence of this infection according to this investigation is 33%.