Aim of the PT: detection of anti-Toxoplasma IgG in animal serum samples.
Who can participate to the PT: all the National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) for parasites from EU member states or associated countries.
Procedure to analyse the panel of samples: a panel of serum samples is delivered to each participant. Each item consists of an aliquot of serum collected from naturally Toxoplasma gondii infected animals (positive) and from Toxoplasma gondii free animals (negative). Participants are requested to analyze PT items by any serological test (commercial or in house) that detect anti-Toxoplasma IgG. Each laboratory may choose the test/s routinely used.
Criteria for the result evaluation: results evaluation is only qualitative. Participating laboratory are requested to to indicate the positivity or negativity of each tested PT item, together with the IgG titer found in each positive sample. Each serum sample has to be tested in duplicated and result of each duplicate has to be reported in the on-line form. Each serum sample is reported “correctly classified” or “incorrectly classified”. Final evaluation is considered “positive” if all samples are correctly classified, and “negative” in all other cases. IgG titers will be considered as additional information on the reliability of the tests used by participants.
