Development of a new accurate lateral flow immunoassay for diagnosis of human leptospirosis.

Purpose: The current diagnostic methods for leptospirosis diagnosis are technically complex and expensive, with limited applicability to specialized laboratories. Furthermore, they lack diagnostic accuracy in the acute stage of the disease, which coincides with a period when antibiotics are highly effective. New simple and accurate tests are mandatory to decentralize and improve diagnosis.

Utility evaluation of two molecular methods for spp. typing in human serum samples.

Most of the available genotyping methods were applied and evaluated in isolates and only few of them in a relevant sample size of blood specimens but not of sera. The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility of one partial 16S rRNA gene sequencing assay (16S rRNA) and an optimized. Multilocus sequence typing scheme (MLST) for typing directly in serum samples.

Presence of spp. in (Crocodylia, Alligatoridae) populations in Santa Fe, Argentina.

Leptospirosis is a disease caused by pathogenic spirochetes of the genus , transmitted by wild and domestic animals. Rodents play a fundamental role in the transmission cycle of this zoonosis but the function of reptiles is unknown. For example, crocodilians could play an important role in the transmission of this disease by living in ideal environments (bodies of shallow water and high temperatures) for the colonization of this bacterium.

Seroprevalence of leptospiral antibodies in rodents from riverside communities of Santa Fe, Argentina.

Background: Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease that can be transmitted by contact with the urine of infected mammals. Rodents play a mayor role in the transmission of leptospires to humans. The province of Santa Fe reports the greatest number of cases in Argentina.

Isolation and clinical sample typing of human leptospirosis cases in Argentina.

Leptospira typing is carried out using isolated strains. Because of difficulties in obtaining them, direct identification of infective Leptospira in clinical samples is a high priority. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) proved highly discriminatory for seven pathogenic species of Leptospira, allowing isolate characterization and robust assignment to species, in addition to phylogenetic evidence for the relatedness between species.

[Evaluation of a reduced panel of leptospira strains for microagglutination].

Objective: To evaluate if the use of the 19 Leptospira strains panel suggested by the International Leptospirosis Society of World Health Organization for microagglutination allows confirmation of more cases that the 12 strains panel used in Argentina.

Materials And Methods: Cross-sectional observational study. We studied 441 serum samples corresponding to Argentinean patients with suspected leptospirosis derived during from July to December, 2009 and from January to October, 2013.

[Human leptospirosis diagnosis:macroscopic agglutination test evaluation in different stages of the disease].

Objective: To evaluate the macroscopic agglutination test using Temperature Resistant (TR) antigen as a screening test for the diagnosis of human leptospirosis in different stages of the disease.

Materials And Methods: The criteria for case definition were based on the results of the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), leukocyte counts and neutrophilia, resulting 218 confirmed cases and 242 non- cases. Each sample was classified according to the days of the disease progression in three stages: first (<10 days), second (10 - 25 days) and third (> 25 days).

[Diagnosis of leptospirosis: evaluation of a solid-phase enzyme immunoassay in different stages of the disease].

Objective: To develop a solid-phase enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) for genus-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) determination with leptospirosis and to evaluate the ELISA in different stages of the disease.

Methods: A total of 1,077 serum samples from 812 patients with suspected leptospirosis were analyzed. The samples had come from diagnoses done in the laboratory of the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias), in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina, between 1999 and 2005.