Table 6.

Test methods available for the diagnosis of WNV and their purpose (Source: (OIE, 2013))

Method	Purpose
	Population freedom from infection	Individual animal freedom from infection	Confirmation of clinical signs	Prevalence of infection	Immune status in individual animals or populations post‐vaccination
Agent identification
Nested RT‐PCR	–	**	**	–	–
Real‐time RT‐PCR	–	**	**	–	–
Isolation in tissue culture	–	**	**	–	–
Detection of immune response
IGM capture ELISA	–	–	**	–
Plague reduction neutralisation	**	–	*	**	**
Serum neutralisation	**	–	*	**	**
Immunohistochemistry	–	–	*	–

*** = recommended method; ** = suitable method; * = may be used in some situations, but cost reliability, or other factors severity limits its application; – = not appropriate for this purpose.

Although not all of the rests listed as category *** have undergone formal validation, their routine nature and the fact that they have been used widely without dubious results, makes them acceptable.

RT‐PCR: reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction; IgM: immunoglobulin M; ELISA: enzyme linked immunosorbent assay.