College of Veterinary Sciences, CCSHAU, Hisar-125004, India.
Differentiation of infected and vaccinated animals (DIVA test) for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus has been performed conventionally by analyzing antibodies against nonstructural proteins (NSPs) using serum samples. Collection of serum samples requires equipment and training and may cause pain and stress to the animal. Restraining of animal becomes difficult and also infringes socioreligious customs. Further, it is very difficult to persuade owners of the milch animals to take blood samples for monitoring vaccinal immune response. This necessitates the use of alternative source(s) of antibodies for monitoring DIVA status of the vaccinated/infected animals. Milk has been shown to be a useful alternative to serum for FMDV antibody testing in cattle and sheep. The present investigation was carried out to evaluate the presence of antibodies against 3A NSPs of FMDV in mastitic milk samples of buffaloes. A total of 135 milk samples collected/obtained randomly from mastitic buffaloes were analyzed for the detection of 3A NSP of FMDV by indirect double antibody sandwich ELISA.
Of the 135 milk samples, the presence of 3A NSP antibodies were detected in 9 samples (6.66%). It may be concluded from the present study that milk could be used as a workable alternative for detection of antibodies against 3A NSP of FMDV. Testing milk in place of sera is useful and practically advantageous in large scale epidemiological studies on milch animals.
