Table 2.

World Organisation for Animal Health test methods available for diagnosis of henipavirus and their purpose

Method	Purpose
	Population freedom from infection	Individual animal freedom from infection prior to movement	Contribution to eradication policies	Confirmation of clinical cases	Prevalence of infection—surveillance (no clinical)	Immune status in individual animals or populations post-vaccination
Agent identification*
Virus isolation	+	+	—	+++		—
RT-PCR and qRT-PCR	+	+	++	+++	++	—
IHC	—	—	—	++	—	—
IFA	—	—	—	++	—	—
Detection of immune response†
ELISA	+++	+++	+++	+	+++	+++
VNT	+++	+++	+++	+	+++	+++
Bead assays	+++	+++	+++	+	+++	+++

+++, recommended method; ++, suitable method; +, may be used in some situations, but cost, reliability or other factors severely limit application; —, not appropriate for this purpose. Although not all of the tests listed as +++ or ++ have undergone formal validation, their routine nature and the fact that they have been used widely without dubious results make them acceptable.

*A combination of agent identification methods applied on the same clinical specimen is recommended.

†One of the listed serological tests is sufficient. Reproduced with permission from OIE Terrestrial Manual, 7th ed. (May 2015 update).⁷⁰

IFA, immunofluorescence assay; IHC, immunohistochemistry; RT-PCR, reverse transcriptase PCR; VNT, virus neutralisation test; qRT-PCR, quantitative RT-PCR.