Dog-DAT: a direct agglutination test using stabilized, freeze-dried antigen for the serodiagnosis of canine visceral leishmaniasis

Abstract

We have evaluated the use of an improved direct agglutination test (DAT) based on stable, freeze-dried antigen for the detection of anti-Leishmania antibodies in canine serum samples. With a cut-off value of 1:640, the sensitivity of the DAT was shown to be 100% and the specificity of the test was 98.8%.