Latex based, rapid and easy assay for human leptospirosis in a single testformat

Leptospirosis is an often severe disease which requires prompt treatment. L aboratory testing is required to reach a valid diagnosis. An agglutination assay for the detection of Leptospira-specific antibodies consisting of ind ividually wrapped agglutination cards containing a stable, dried detection reagent is evaluated. The assay is simply performed by suspending the dried reagent with a drop of serum. The result is obtained within 30 s. The sens itivity of the assay varied with the stage of the disease and was 72.3% for samples collected during the first 10 days of the illness and 88.2% for sa mples collected at a later stage. The specificity was 93.9% and 89.8%, resp ectively. These characteristics make the test ideal for use in areas where the disease is common and where laboratory support is not routinely availab le.