In vitro Cultivation of Leishmania donovani in NNN and Milk Agar Media

A fifteen different biphasic media were used to cultivated promastigote parasite of Leishmania donovani and compared with ordinary NNN medium, to find a cow milk agar medium can provide a good cultivation to the parasite as well as the ordinary medium, where milk is a simple, cheap and a good source of protein, carbohydrate, lipids and calcium. But milk cannot be a substituted for rabbit blood as solid phase that was given the greatest count of parasites when using it. Also, using a 10% of human urine as a liquid phase can enhance the growth rate of parasite up to eight times, this reduced the time that needed to cultivate the parasite in the ordinary NNN medium. So, using of a modified NNN medium BHU (medium that used the rabbit blood as solid phase and 10% of human urine as liquid phase) in the field of laboratory can provide a short duration to cultivate Leishmania parasite.