[Applications and limitations of immunological techniques in the sero-epidemiological analysis of parasitic risk (author's transl)].

In order to be applicable to sero-epidemiology, serological reactions must lend themselves to micro-techniques and automation. Their results, notably concerning malaria, sleeping sickness, amoebiasis, schistosomiasis and filariasis, complement those of direct parasitological examination. Serology is often more accurate, but is also more costly and should be reserved for those cases in which other analytical methods are either impossible or too undependable (low transmission level). Serological methods generally involve little risk or false negativity, but they can be falsely positive and improvement of the specificity of available testing procedures is at present one of the major technological problems of parasitic sero-epidemiology.