The use of latex agglutination for the diagnosis of acute human leptospirosis.

The authors evaluated a simple latex agglutination test for the serodiagnosis of acute human leptospirosis. A total of 380 serum samples from 85 confirmed leptospirosis patients and 202 non-leptospirosis patients were selected Using the selected cut-off value of weakly positive, the overall sensitivity and overall specificity of the test were 94.1% and 97.0% respectively. The weighted kappa value for agreement reading between two independent examiners was 0.82. When focused on the first sera obtained from the patients, the sensitivity of the test for acute infection sera was only 17.6%. The latex agglutination test is easy to perform with no need for training and no requirement of special equipment. The assay has a good sensitivity and specificity. This is an interesting alternative assay for serodiagnosis of acute human leptospirosis.