Prevalence of Entamoeba Histolytica and Entamoeba Dispar in Tripoli – Libya using ELISA

Entamoeba histolytica is one of the most common intestinal parasites, it's an intestinal pathogenic parasite considered the causative agent of amoebiasis, E. histolytica is morphologically indistinguishable from Entamoeba dispar, a closely related organism that is not able to invade tissues, and therefore, the differential diagnosis under conventional microscopy is impossible. The main purpose of this study was to estimate the proportions between E. histolytica and E. dispar in patients with amoebic infection, using the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). 500 Human fecal samples were collected randomly from different laboratories in Tripoli City-Libya, samples were divided into 2 parts, a portion of each sample was quickly conserved in the freezer at (-20oC) until used for ELISA analysis, and the other part was microscopically examined immediately or fixed in 10% formalin-saline to be further examined by direct smear and Formalin-ether sedimentation concentration technique. The result of this study revealed the prevalence rate of E. histolytica / E. dispar infection in Tripoli city was 70 (14%) using microscopy. While ELISA results that from 70 patients with an initial diagnosis of E. histolytica/E. dispar by microscopy only 26 patients (5.2%) were E. histolytica positive, while the remaining 44 (62.6%) samples out of 70 samples were E. dispar.