Record of porcine brucellosis in India by indigenously developed indirect ELISA

Abstract

Porcine brucellosis is a contagious and emerging zoonosis but neglected in most of the endemic countries including India. The disease in pigs is rarely reported due to non-availability of diagnostics or major focus is on bovine brucellosis. Hence, the necessity was felt to develop indirect ELISA for the detection of anti-Brucella antibodies and to record spatial seroprevalence of porcine brucellosis in the country. The relative diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of the developed indirect ELISA were 94.0% and 92.0%, respectively and kappa agreement with rose bengal plate test, serum agglutination test and commercial indirect ELISA kit was found to be 0.86 (95% confidence interval 0.78–0.93). A total of 2 576 random serum samples sourced from 10 states were screened by indirect ELISA and true prevalence of 7.2% (95% confidence interval 5.6–8.7) was recorded. The study concluded the prevalence of brucellosis in swine population in many states of the country and indirect ELISA as an alternate test to rose bengal plate test and serum agglutination tests.