[The determination of the species specificity of Leishmania antibodies in different groups of human sera].

Species-specificity of two serological tests has been compared: Indirect immunofluorescence test and C-ELISA using antigens prepared of 7 Leishmania species of various groups of human sera, including sera from healthy donors; sera of patients with various tropical parasitoses; sera containing rheumatoid factor and antinuclear antibodies; sera of patients with visceral leishmaniasis (VL); sera of normal subjects arrived from regions endemic for VL; sera of students arrived in Czechoslovakia from various tropical countries endemic for leishmaniasis. It has been shown that C-ELISA (and EIA with corpuscular antigen), being highly sensitive techniques, are very promising for the identification of species-specific Leishmania antibodies. C-ELISA titres beginning from 1:800 and above may be considered as species-specific. With the titre 1:400, cross-reactions with antigens of various Leishmania species are observed.