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SHORT COMMUNICATION - Skin Reactions to Thimerosal and Leishmania in Dogs from a Leishmaniasis Endemic Area: it is Better to Keep them Apart Moacir Paranhos-Silva; Lain C Pontes-de-Carvalho; Geraldo G de Sá Oliveira; Eliane Góes Nascimento & Washington LC dos-Santos Abstract Positive Montenegro's skin test is a delayed type hypersensitivity reaction widely used as indicative of previous infection with Leishmania in both humans and dogs. Montenegro's antigen consists of a crude Leishmania antigen solution, usually containing thimerosal as preserving agent. In this work it is shown that a large proportion of dogs (11 out of 56) examined in an endemic area of leishmaniasis presented induration at the site of injection of a diluent containing thimerosal alone. This clearly demonstrates that thimerosal leads to a high number of false positive skin reactions in dogs and that its use in Montenegro's skin test antigenic preparations should be avoided. Keywords Montenegro's skin test, Leishmania, delayed type hypersensitivity, thimerosal, canine visceral leishmaniasis

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