Differentiation and detection of viruses causing vesicular/mucocutaneous lesions are essential for patient management. This study evaluated the analytical and clinical performance of the Novaplex™ HSV-1 clade Ib: 1.9 Log TCID50/mL; clade IIb: 1.4 Log TCID50/mL). Clinically, the assay showed high overall sensitivity (97.1%) and specificity (100%), with almost perfect agreement with Singleplex PCR (κ = 0.947). Stratified results by viruses: HSV showed κ = 1.000 and 100% of sensitivity, MPXV showed a sensitivity of 97.8% with κ = 0.969, and VZV showed a κ = 0.914 with a sensitivity of 87.5%. Specificity was 100% for all three viruses. Novaplex offers a robust, efficient diagnostic approach for simultaneous detection of MPXV, HSV-1/2, and VZV, supporting timely clinical decision making and enhanced outbreak preparedness.
Sberna et al. (Sat,) studied this question.