Confirmation of meningococcal disease by urinary antigen testing

The meningococcus is an important cause of morbidity and mortality and a ra pid laboratory diagnosis is required through accurate, non-culture-based me thods. Body fluids that are easily obtainable are preferred for this route of diagnosis and urine is the specimen of choice as it can be obtained non- invasively. Urine samples were tested from patients with suspected meningoc occal disease and tested by latex agglutination and PCR. It was shown that urinary PCR is not useful for the laboratory confirmation of MD but latex a gglutination testing may be useful in certain settings prior to confirmator y testing by a reference laboratory.