Background: Although parvovirus infections are usually benign and self-limiting, it is important to confirm the diagnosis in a public health setting which might involve pregnant women and in which an outbreak could lead to medical consequences. In these situations, microbiological confirmation by thumb prick is a relatively low-invasive method that is simple to carry out.
Objective And Study Design: Because relatively small blood volumes are obtained in thumb prick blood samples, we compared the results of two different techniques during an outbreak of erythema infectiosum: the usual serological detection of IgM antibodies (ELISA) versus PCR-based detection of viral DNA.