Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.08.11.246009v1?rss=1 Authors: WANG, L., Wang, Q., Cai, H., Wang, H., Huang, Y., Feng, Y., Bai, X., Qin, M., Manguin, S., Gavotte, L., Wu, W., Frutos, R. Abstract: Human echinococcosis is present worldwide but it is in China that prevalence is the highest. Western China and in particular the Tibetan plateau is the region where the burden of echinococcosis is the most important. Dogs are a major carrier of echinococcosis and monitoring the presence of Echinococcus worms in dogs is therefore essential for efficiently controlling the disease. Detection kits based on three different technologies, i.e. sandwich ELISA, ELISA and gold immunodiffusion are currently marketed and used in China. The objective of this work was to assess the efficacy of these kits, in particular with respect to sensitivity and specificity. Four fecal antigen detection kits for canine echinococcosis covering the three technologies were obtained from companies and tested in parallel on 220 fecal samples. The results indicate that the performance is lower than expected, in particular in terms of sensitivity. The best results were obtained with the sandwich ELISA technology. The gold immunofiltration yielded the poorest results. In all cases, further development is needed to improve the performance of these kits, which represent a key element for the control of echinococcosis. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info