Determination of Herd Prevalence of Brucellosis using Rose Bengal Plate Test and Indirect ELISA

The present study was aimed at diagnosis of brucellosis in cattle and buffalo using RBPT and iELISA and comparing the two tests. The animals belonged to a cattle shelter house (Gaushala). Out of 303 sera samples collected, 125 (41.25%) were positive by RBPT and among 125 positive samples, 2 were of male and other 123 were of female animals. On the other hand the results of ELISA were tripartite and 142 (46.86%), 22 (07.26%) and 139 (45.54%) samples were found as positive, moderately positive and negative, respectively. Overall by combining the both type of positive results, 164 (54.12%) samples were found positive by iELISA. On herd level, this was much higher than reports from most of earlier workers. On taking iELISA as reference test, the sensitivity and specificity of RBPT were calculated as 80.78% and 100%, respectively and the level of agreement between two tests was 0.871. But three categories of variations were observed between two tests, i.e. eighteen samples were positive in RBPT but negative in ELISA, 49 were negative in RBPT but positive in ELISA and 12 were negative in RBPT but moderately positive in ELISA.