Workshop no. 3. Serodiagnosis of parasitic infections

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Abstract
Although methods for quantitative immunoassay have been available for a long time and have been used as a diagnostic tool for viral and bacterial diseases, as well as for immunological disorders, it is only recently that such methods have found wider application in parasitology. There are probably several reasons for this. One is that in developed countries parasitic diseases and in particular tropical infections were for a long time not recognized as severe health problems which deserved serious attention. Many technical problems have also been associated with parasite serology. Earlier serological methods were, for various reasons, unsuitable for use in the diagnosis of parasitic infections. For instance, the complement fixation test is, in many instances, not sensitive enough to detect active infection and the later introduced passive haemagglutination test, which has a considerably higher level of sensitivity, has the disadvantage of not detecting antibodies to carbohydrate antigens, such as some of the diagnostic antigens of adult schistosomes.