Detection of Rocky Mountain spotted fever antibodies by a latex agglutination test

Abstract
A latex test for immunodiagnosis of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, using erythrocyte-sensitizing substance from Rickettsia rickettsii adsorbed to latex particles, was developed. The test was evaluated with 123 single and 118 paired human sera submitted for Rocky Mountain spotted fever testing. This test is simple, sensitive and specific. Its efficiency, relative to the reference microimmunofluorescence test, was 95.1% for single sera and approached 100% for paired sera.