Table 8.
Test methods available for diagnosis of bovine viral diarrhoea and their purpose (reproduced from OIE (2015))
| 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 | Immune status in individual animals or populations post‐vaccination | |
| Agent identification | ||||||
| Virus isolation | + | +++ | ++ | +++ | – | – |
| Antigen detection by ELISA | ++ | +++ | +++ | +++ | +++ | – |
| IHC | – | – | – | ++ | – | – |
| NA detection by real time RT‐PCR | +++ | +++ | +++ | +++ | +++ | – |
| Detection of immune response | ||||||
| ELISA | +++ | ++ | +++ | – | +++ | +++ |
| VN | + | +++ | ++ | – | + | +++ |
Key: +++ = recommended method; ++ = suitable method; + = may be used in some situations, but cost, reliability, or other factors severely limits its application; – = not appropriate for this purpose. Although not all of the tests listed as category +++ or ++ have undergone formal validation, their routine nature and the fact that they have been used widely without dubious results, makes them acceptable.
IHC: immunohistochemistry; NA: nucleic acid; VN: virus neutralisation.