Antibody-based assays for the diagnosis of filarial and other infectio
ns cannot reliably distinguish between past and current infection, nor
con they be used to assess the efficacy of chemotherapy. In this arti
cle, Thomas Nutman, Peter Zimmerman, Joseph Kubofcik and Donna Kostyu
discuss how the detection of parasite-specific PCR products using on E
LISA-based assay may overcome these problems.