Evaluation of Current Diagnostic Tests for Typhoid Fever in Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital

Background: Typhoid fever is a potentially fatal multisystemic illness caused primarily by Salmonella enterica (S enterica) subspecies enterica serovar typhi and, to a lesser extent, related serovars paratyphi A, B, and C and others. Objectives: Is to assess different methods in diagnosing typhoid fever in the patients attending Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital and to know which one of them is the best in the diagnosis. Type of the study: A retrospective cross-sectional study. Patients and methods: Total 100 patients consulted Al-Kindy Teaching Hospital, laboratory department in Baghdad, Iraq for diagnosis of typhoid fever from December 2017 to March 2018. About 50 of them were tested for Widal test and the rest were blood culture done for them. Results: Widal test showed positive results in 14% of the patients and the rest were negative. There was a significant difference between two groups (p=0.002), while results of blood culture showed a negative result in 86% of cases and the rest 14% were positive with other bacteria like E. coli, Pseudomonas spp. and Staphylococcus spp. There were no significant differences between the two groups (p=1). Conclusion: Widal test is not useful in diagnosing the disease and blood culture was negative due to the inappropriate time of blood collections.