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Diagnosis of leptospirosis by the micropsciopic agglutination test (MAT) or by culture is confined to specialized laboratories. Even more common ELISA techniques require laboratory facilities. Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) can be used for easy point-of-care diagnosis. This study, published in PLoS NTDs evaluated the diagnostic performance of three of these RDTs for leptospirosis diagnosis and found the soverall ensitivity and specificity to range from 75 to 78% and 95 to 98%, respectively.
The authors concluded that while the tests support clinical suspician and contribute to awareness, the poor sensitivity (<80%) confirmation by reference tests is strongly recommended.
The full article is available through the following link: http://www.plosntds.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002290