Zahra Rezaei - Professor Alborzi Clinical Microbiology research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences
Philippe Büscher - Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
Pourabbas Büscher

Introduction: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a deadly and neglected tropical disease caused by obligate intracellular protozoa of the genus Leishmania.Aim: In current study performance characteristics of three rK39 immunochromatographic tests and the direct agglutination test in diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis was assessed.Methods: The study population was composed of 100 VL patients, 58 none VL patients and 200 endemic healthy controls.Results: The sensitivities of Kalazar Detect ®, DiaMed-IT Leish ®, Cypress and DAT were 73%, 82%, 70% and 81%, respectively, and the specificities were 97%, 97%, 97%, and 88%, respectively.Conclusion: The overall sensitivity and specificity of DiaMed-IT Leish ®, rapid immunochromatografic test, was more than the other two immunochromatographic tests and also DAT. These differences between sensitivities of various ICTs may be due to some diversity existance between the k39 of different strain of parasites. Producing a recombinant rk39 of Iranian strain parasite, Leishmania infantum, for serological diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis may be helpful to overcome such problem.