title: Modification on Direct Agglutination Antigen Preparation for Simplified Sero-Diagnosis of Human and Canine Visceral Leishmaniasis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Visceral leishmaniasis is systematic serous parasitic disease with public health importance. Zoonotic form of visceral leishmaniasis is wide spread in Mediterranean basin and South America regions. Direct agglutination test (DAT) is an accurate, reliable and non-expensive serological test for the diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in human and canines but the antigen preparation involves some limitations. This study aimed to compare the conventional production of DAT antigen with our modified DAT antigen and then assessed on human and dog pooled sera.
  
  
  METHODS
  Conventional DAT antigen has been prepared at the School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences and some modifications were carried out on it, which named as modified DAT antigen. Three positive and one negative human and dog pooled serum were separately used for the comparison of modified DAT with conventional DAT antigen batches with one-month interval for a period of 9 months.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A good concordance was observed between modified DAT compared to conventional DAT antigens for the detection of visceral leishmaniasis on human (100%) and dog (94.4%) pooled sera, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Since the modified DAT antigen could be reduced the preparation time from 3 days to several hours and a good degree of agreement was found between modified DAT and convention DAT antigen batches, it can be used as a simple and easy tool for screening and serodiagnosis of human and canine L. infantum infection.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Center for Research of Endemic Parasites of Iran (CREPI), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Mehdi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mohebali
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Behnaz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Akhoundi
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Kakooei
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Meshkin Shahr Research Station, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Meshkin Shahr, Iran.
authors.forename: Zabih
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zarei
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Sorour
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Charehdar
authors.affiliation: Meshkin Shahr Health Centre, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Meshkin Shahr, Iran.
authors.forename: Soheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Molaei
keywords: Antigen modification; Direct agglutination test; Visceral leishmaniasis