Detection of toxin-producing from throat swabs of diphtheria patients using duplex real-time PCR.

Background And Objectives: Diphtheria is a potentially fatal disease caused by toxigenic bacterial infection, particularly from . Isolation of is technically lacking in sensitivity, and Elek's test to detect toxin production has several difficulties associated with its application. Duplex real-time PCR to throat swab of suspected diphtheria patients can detect both bacteria and toxin-encoding genes simultaneously, faster, with higher sensitivity and specificity.