COMPARISON OF COMPETITIVE ELISA, INDIRECT ELISA AND AGAR-GEL PRECIPITATION TEST FOR THE DETECTION OF BLUETONGUE VIRUS-ANTIBODIES IN SHEEP

The present study was undertaken to compare 3 serological tests, viz. competitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (C-ELISA), indirect ELIS A (I-ELISA) and agar-gel precipitation test (AGPT) for detection of bl uetongue virus (BTV) antibodies in sheep. Out of 388 serum samples tes ted; AGPT could detect only 91 (23%), whereas ELISA could detect 247 ( 63.6%) positive samples. Testing of 85 samples by I-ELISA and C-ELISA showed that both the tests were more or less equally sensitive in dete cting BTV antibodies. On analysing the breed distribution of positive samples tested by ELISA it was found that the Russian Merino. Bharat M erino, Rambouillet, Mutton cross, Avikalin and indigenous breeds of sh eep had 92.8. 76.3, 73.07. 60.7, 61.4 and 53.6% of BTV antibodies resp ectively. The prevalence of higher rate of BTV antibodies in exotic br eeds of sheep than crossbred and indigenous breeds showed their higher susceptibility of BTV. It was also found that the hoggets (85.7%) wer e more susceptible than the adults (62.4%) and both males and females were almost equally susceptible having per cent prevalance of 62.5 and 65.09 respectively.