Diagnostic tests for animal trypanosomosis suffer from some limitations:

• microscopic tests detecting the parasite have limited sensitivity, are laborious and are not really suited for individual diagnosis

• DNA detection techniques: they are more sensitive, but expensive, difficult to perform outside an equipped lab and technically too complicated for large scale use

• antibody detection ELISA tests detect trypanosome-specific antibodiesand are useful in particular for AT surveillance. However, tests need further standardization and the production of the reagents, which relies on animal infection, needs to be revised.

Combat will focus on improving antibody detection, which is mainly used for surveillance by:

• replacing animal infection for production of parasites, by an in vitro culture, inclusion of positive and negative controls and stabilising the test reagents

• increasing sensitivity of recombinant antigens based tests, by either mixing different recombinants or by combining several epitopes in a new genetically engineered recombinant protein