Background: Diarrhea in newborn small ruminants continues to be the cause of significant financial losses in sheep and goat farms around the world. Commercial immunochromatographic assays (IC) have been designed and evaluated to be used for the diagnosis of diarrhea in cattle; however, there are no trials to use rapid tests in small ruminants.
Aim: This study was carried out in Kuwait to evaluate the performance of rapid immunochromatography test (BoviD-4, BioNote, Inc, Korea) for diagnostics of Cryptosporidium, rotavirus A (RVA), bovine coronavirus (BCoV) and Escherichia coli K99 (E. coli K99) in fecal samples of small ruminants.
Methods: Eighty-five samples were examined using BoviD- 4, and the results were compared with that of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Cryptosporidium, RVA, BCoV, whereas for E. coli K99 by isolation and identification as reference tests.
Results: The Kappa test (κ) agreement results between the rapid assay and reference tests were 0.870 (perfect), 0.783 (substantial), 0.728 (substantial), and 0.281 (fair) for the detection of E. coli K99, Cryptosporidium, RVA, and BCoV, respectively. The sensitivity of BoviD-4 kit was 91.2%, 80.0%, 90.0% and 37.5% and the specificity was 88.2%, 96.0%, 96.4% and 92.2% for Cryptosporidium, RVA, E. coli K99, and BCoV, respectively.
Conclusion: The Bovid-4 kit can be used as a rapid pen-side test for Cryptosporidium spp., E. coli K99, and RVA in the field. Nonetheless, care must be taken while interpreting BCoV results of the kit.
Key words: Diarrhea, Sheep, Goats, Immunochromatography assay, Kuwait.
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