CDC : Possible Recurrent Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Infection, Israel

A report from CDC, excerpt :

" To the Editor:

We report 2 cases of possible recurrent laboratory-confirmed infection with pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus in Israel. Patient 1, a 24-year-old man, had Noonan syndrome. He was hospitalized on August 10, 2009, because of high-grade fever and cough. At admission, a nasopharyngeal specimen was collected for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus real-time reverse transcription–PCR (RT-PCR) (ABI 7500; Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) for the pandemic hemagglutinin gene; a validated in-house protocol developed at Israel Central Virology Laboratory was used, as previously described.

Briefly, the in-house assay was validated against the assay for pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; Atlanta, GA, USA). The in-house assay was as sensitive as the CDC assay; however, the in-house primers and probes were more specific for detecting pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus with 105% amplification efficiency of viral RNA that was logarithmically serially diluted. In addition, of 100 samples tested side by side with the in-house and CDC assays, 75 samples were positive by both assays, and 25 were negative by both assays; thus, the sensitivity and specificity of the in-house assay were 100%."