Evaluation of Lateral Flow Assay on Skin Specimen for Scaling up Canine Rabies Surveillance

Autor: Sujatha Aparna, Abraham Susan Swapna, B. Abeena, PR Prathiush, Jose Mini
Rok vydání: 2022
Zdroj: EAS Journal of Veterinary Medical Science. 4:28-31
ISSN: 2663-7316
2663-1881
DOI: 10.36349/easjvms.2022.v04i03.001
Popis: Surveillance of animal rabies is severely constrained in resource poor developing countries. The traditional reference method of brain testing has several limitations. Hence there is need for alternative method which is rapid, simple, sensitive and specific on a less invasive sample to scale up rabies surveillance. The present study evaluated the efficacy of Lateral Flow Assay (LFA) on skin specimen for post mortem screening of rabies in dogs. Skin sample and brain tissue of 56 dogs including two wild dogs which came for routine rabies surveillance were collected at necropsy. LFA on skin, LFA on brain and Fluorescent Antibody Test (FAT) on brain were conducted. The diagnostic efficacy of LFA on skin was compared against FAT on brain, the reference method for rabies diagnosis. Correlation between LFA on skin and LFA on brain was also evaluated. The study found that LFA on skin has equal efficiency as that of LFA on brain for post mortem detection of rabies in dogs. It revealed a sensitivity of 96.6% and specificity of 100% against the traditional reference method of brain testing by FAT. Based on the results, LFA on skin looks promising as a practical field tool to improve reporting and strengthen surveillance. The findings warrant further evaluation on a large sample set under different field conditions.
Databáze: OpenAIRE