A laboratory blood test is 99% effective in detecting a certain disease when its infection is present. However, the test also yields a false positive result for 0.5% of the healthy person tested (i.e if a healthy person is tested, then, with probability 0.005, the test will imply he has the disease). If 0.1% of the population actually has the disease, what is the probability that a person has the disease given that his test result is positive?
Let us assume U1, U2, U3 and A be the events as follows:
U1 = Person has disease
U2 = Person doesn’t has disease
A = Blood test result is positive
From the problem,
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⇒ P(A|U1) = P(Blood test results shows positive for the person with disease)
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⇒ P(A|U2) = P(Blood test results shows positive for the person without disease)
⇒
Now we find
P(U1|A) = P(The Person has a disease given that the blood test results shows positive)
Using Baye’s theorem:
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⇒
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∴ The required probability is .