Abstract

Deepti Chachra, Hari Mohan Saxena*, Gurpreet Kaur and Mudit Chandra

Comparative efficacy of 3 serodiagnostic tests (RBPT, STAT and Dot ELISA) in detecting anti - Brucella antibodies in sera was evaluated on a total of 28 serum samples which included 18 samples from brucellosis suspected and 10 from normal healthy (brucellosis unaffected) cattle. Out of 18 sera from suspected cases, only 1 (5.55%) sample was found positive by STAT and 9 (50%) samples were positive by RBPT, whereas Dot ELISA could detect antibodies in all the 18 (100%) samples. Interestingly, RBPT could detect antibodies in 10 out of 17 (58.82%) samples found negative by STAT. The entire 9 samples positive by RBPT (100%) showed positive results with Dot ELISA also. Of the 9 RBPT negative samples, 11.25% showed positive and 88.88% showed negative results by STAT while all the 9 samples (100%) showed positive results with Dot ELISA. All the 10 sera from normal healthy animals were negative by RBPT, STAT and ELISA. Thus, Dot ELISA was found to be the most sensitive of the 3 tests used. It is, however, suggested that in order to get a fool proof diagnosis of Brucella infection, a combination of RBPT and Dot ELISA should be used, especially in case of samples found negative by either RBPT or STAT used alone or in combination.