Camara O. auteur aut IRD Camara M. auteur aut IRD Lejon Veerle auteur aut IRD Ilboudo H. auteur aut IRD Sakande H. auteur aut IRD Leno M. auteur aut IRD Buscher P. auteur aut IRD Bucheton Bruno auteur aut IRD Jamonneau Vincent auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access OBJECTIVES The immune trypanolysis test (TL) is an accurate sero-diagnostic tool increasingly implemented for sleeping sickness medical surveillance, but it is restricted to the reference laboratories. To facilitate storage and transport of the test specimen, we developed a protocol for the examination of blood spotted on filter paper (TL-fp) that can be stored and shipped at ambient temperature. We compared its performance with the classical TL on plasma (TL-pl) that needs to be kept frozen until use. METHODS The study was conducted in active foci of the Republic of Guinea. In total, 438 specimens from treated and untreated sleeping sickness patients and serological suspects were tested with both methods. RESULT TL-fp gave significantly less positive results than TL-pl, but all the confirmed sleeping sickness cases were positive with the TL-fp protocol. CONCLUSION TL-fp appears to offer a good compromise between feasibility and sensitivity to detect currently infected subjects who play a role in the transmission of Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and is useful for contributing to the elimination of gambiense sleeping sickness. specialized human African trypanosomiasis diagnosis immune trypanolysis test filter paper antibody surveillance GUINEE 052 19 7 828-831 2014 1360-2276 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010062305 10.1111/tmi.12316 1360-2276 [F B010062305] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010062305 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2014/08/010062305.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2014-09-09 2017-08-23 fdi:010062305 fre