COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF

Using the modified Ziehl Neelsen stain in the present work, some microsporidian spores were seen; they faded and turned transparent quickly. They could be easily picked against the bluish background, when stained, they appeared bright pink. This was in agreement with Garcia and Bruckner (1997) who reported that microsporidia are acid-fast. However, Hegab et al. (1998) could not find microsporidia by using MZN.Safranin-Methylene blue Stain:Proper diagnosis of Cyclospora presents a problem in many laboratories, due to its frequent misdiagnosis with Cryptosporidium, and its difficult staining properties (Goodgame, 1996).Safranin stain used in the present study was one of the most successful, being fast and easy to perform as almost all the oocysts were uniformly stained. Other workers recommended using this stain but they heated the slides in a microwave oven to ensure homogenicity of the stain (Visvesvara et al., 1997 and Eberhard et al., 1997). However, the process of heating in this study was done by distributing the heat uniformly. This technique was also performed by Negm (1998). Moura et al. (1997) stated that safranin staining of Cyclospora cayetanensis oocysts did not require microwave heating.By the modern modifications of the formol ethyl acetate sedimentation technique used in the present work, it was observed that safranin stain was a perfect, simple and cheap stain, especially by using extra-fixation of stool samples with heating and HCl acid methanol (3%). Baxby et al. (1984), the