Comparative Evaluation of Various Diagnostic Tests in Diagnosis of Bovine Brucellosis

Abstract

Brucellosis is a zoonotic, economically important and contagious bacterial disease of livestock characterized by abortions, infertility and reduced production performance and diagnosis of brucellosis is so important in achieving appropriate brucellosis control strategy.  This study was aimed to compare and evaluate various brucellosis diagnostic tests like Rose Bengal Test (RBT), Standard Tube Agglutination Test (STAT), indirect ELISA, Milk Ring Test (MRT) and milk ELISA in Tamil Nadu. A total of 483 sera and 483 milk samples were collected from 483 lactating cattle from various districts of Tamil Nadu. Overall, the highest prevalence was encountered by i-ELISA (6.62 %) followed by m-ELISA (5.59%), MRT (4.34%), STAT (3.93%) and RBT (3.10%). The evaluations of various diagnostic tests were achieved using i-ELISA as gold standard and the highest correlation between i-ELISA and m-ELISA (almost perfect agreement, k value - 0.82) were documented. This present study concluded that, m-ELISA have similar promising results with i-ELISA in detecting individual animals which implies, in lactating animals milk-ELISA can be used as suitable alternative test of serum-ELISA.