Children who flew in an trans-Atlantic airplane have been exposed to the new virulent strain of influenza. A laboratory has developed a 6-minute antigen assay from nasal swabs to diagnose the disease. The lab ran this test on 1000 samples. In a longer test that is considered the gold standard assay, 200 of these samples were found to be true positives and 800 true negatives. When tested by the new antigen assay, 150 of the true positives tested positive, and 790 of the true negative samples tested negative.
What is the sensitivity of this assay?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Sensitivity is the proportion of true positives that are correctly identified by the test. In this case, 150 out of 200 true positives were correctly identified, so the sensitivity is 150/200 = 0.75, or 75%.

Children Who Flew in an Trans-Atlantic Airplane Have Been Exposed