USE OF MUSCLE EXUDATES FOR THE DETECTION OF ANTI-GE ANTIBODIES TO AUJESZKYS-DISEASE VIRUS

A commercial ELISA test to detect serum anti-gE antibodies to Aujeszky 's disease virus was adapted for use with muscle exudates. The muscle samples were taken from the diaphragm of pig carcases at the slaughter house. Three hundred and eighty-nine pairs of samples of serum and mus cle exudate were com pared to determine the possibility of using muscl e exudate samples in a programme to control Aujeszky's disease. Taking the serum samples as the reference, the individual sensitivity of the test was 93.2 per cent and the individual specificity was 98.3 per ce nt. The concentration of antibodies in the muscle exudates was on aver age 20 times lower than that in the serum samples.