evaluation of two immunodiagnostic assays (mat and ifa) for human leptospirosis in gilan province -iran

background leptospirosis is a systemic infectious disease caused by pathogenic bacteria belonging to the species of leptospira, it is considered to be the most common zoonosis in the world. this is a serious and sometimes fatal infection which is transmitted from animals to humans by entering the digestive tract or mucosal membrane. within the initial 10-12 day period, the patient may experience no or relatively minor symptoms, then the bacteria enters the blood system and causes contamination of the internal organs,especially the liver. objectives this study prospectively evaluated two serological methods, the microscopic agglutination test (mat) and indirect immunofluorescence assay (ifa) with the aim of identifying leptospiral agents quickly, in order to prevent and control leptospirosis diseases. patients and methods in this study, 90 blood samples and their serums, were collected from patients showing clinical symptoms of leptospirosis, and these were analyzed with mat and ifa tests, to test for the presence of leptospiral agglutinins. in this study we used five serogroups of leptospira interrogans, which have been identified as the dominant serogroups in iran (pomona, canicola, grippotyphosa, icterohaemorrhagiae and sejro hardjo). results the results obtained showed that when compared to the ifa, the mat was a more sensitive test. the ifa method also identified certain specific properties of the serogroups;pomona, canicola and icterohaemorragiae, which are detailed in the article. conclusions serological testing is the most widely used method for diagnosing leptospirosis,and the mat is considered to be the gold standard test for the diagnosis and detection of leptospiral antibodies in both human and animal sera, for the infecting serovar and serogroup.