Objective: Leishmaniasis is an endemic disease in almost ninety countries. The diagnosis of leishmaniasis should be ideally confirmed by demonstration of parasites, although some forms of Leishmaniasis are extremely difficult to diagnose by parasitology. Other alternative methods include culture, immune-based methods such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay -ELISA and direct agglutination test. Molecular techniques, particularly PCR, are now taking places in the diagnostics of Leishmaniasis, and prove high sensitivity and specificity.

Materials and Methods: Fifty blood donors who were deemed fit to donate blood in were chosen. Blood samples were taken, and nucleic acids of the specimens were extracted. The PCR mix was supplemented in a 200 μl tube. The PCR was performed in an Eppendorf (EP) Gradient S thermo-cycler. 5 µl of the products were analyzed on a 2% Agarose gel stained with ethidium bromide; the extracts were tested with the SSU PCR assay (18s rRNA). It was amplified with primers: M18S-L-F and M18S-L-R.

Results: None of the 50 donors’ DNA showed a positive test result with SSU PCR assay.

Conclusions: It’s still not clear why there were no positive results: is it due to the failure of detection of parasite DNA by SSU-PCR, or simply because there were no parasites in the donors’ blood.