Comparative evaluation of blood based lateral flow assay for diagnosis of brucellosis in livestock species

Abstract

Brucellosis is a zoonotic and economically important disease of livestock. Pen side diagnostics are the need of the hour for the rapid diagnosis of brucellosis. The present study aimed to evaluate blood based lateral flow assay (LFA) with serum based LFA and rose bengal plate test (RBPT) for diagnosis of brucellosis. Sera/blood samples [792: cattle, 153; buffalo, 55; sheep, 140; goats, 219; and pigs, 225] were collected from Karnataka, India with history of repeat breeding, retention of placenta and abortion.The seropositivity of brucellosis in cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats and pigs was 7.84, 3.63, 12.85, 2.73 and 39.11% by RBPT; 5.88, 3.63, 8.57, 2.73 and 31.1% by blood-LFA; and 7.18, 3.63, 10.71, 3.19 and 32.88% by serum-LFA. Relative specificity of blood based LFA was between 98.97 to 99.53% and 97.42 to 100% in comparison to serum-LFA and RBPT, respectively in all the species. The relative sensitivity for all the species ranged from 64.29 to 83.33% by blood-LFA and 57.14 to 84.09% by serum-LFA. The diagnostic accuracy of blood-LFA to RBPT and serum- LFA ranged from 91 to 99% among the species studied. It is opined that blood based LFA can serve as diagnostic test in place of serum based LFA for brucellosis screening in multiple livestock species and suggested for adaptation on-farm, slaughter, market, clinical and prepurchase surveillance of brucellosis in the country.