Molecular and serological rapid tests as markers of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in dogs in Costa Rica.

Introduction: Chagas disease is a zoonotic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi and dogs are one of the main domestic reservoirs.

Materials And Methods: One molecular (OligoC-TesT, Coris Bioconcept) and one serological (T. cruzi-Detect, Inbios) rapid tests were evaluated as infection markers for T. cruzi in 102 dogs living in eight villages endemic for Chagas in Costa Rica.

Results: T. cruzi-Detect performed well as screening tool with 23.3% positive samples. The large number of invalid results (66.7%) observed in samples tested with OligoC-TesT precluded assessing the use of this new method as epidemiological tool to detect T. cruzi infection in dogs.