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Page No. : 36-44

ABSTRACT

Hydatidosis caused by Echinococcus granulosus in man and animals results in severe economic losses and public health problems in the world, including India. The present study was undertaken to standardize the Flow Through Assay for quick serodiagnosis of hydatidosis in buff aloes. A total of 317 slaughtered buff aloes were examined by post-mortem examination during April 2018 and to July 2018 at Deonar Abattoir, Mumbai, and the occurrence of hydatidosis was found to be 4.73%. Further, a total of 186 buffalo sera samples were analyzed by FTA using crude and purified hydatid fluid antigens. The seroprevalence of hydatidosis by FTA using crude antigen was observed to be 6.45%, and by purified antigen, it was 5.37%. An equal number of buffalo sera (186) was analyzed by ELISA with a seroprevalence of 6.4%. The sensitivity and specificity of ELISA were observed to be 93.75% and 98.82%, respectively. Purified hydatid fluid antigen was found to be more specific for FTA to detect hydatidosis in buffaloes with a sensitivity of 93.75% and specificity of 99.41%. The results obtained from the FTA and ELISA were analyzed to check the comparative efficacy of these tests using Cohens’s kappa coefficient by knowing the percentage of agreement with post-mortem examination, which indicated that the strength of agreement between ELISA and FTA using purified antigen was very good, as ‘k’ value was 0.950. The study concluded that FTA is a suitable diagnostic tool, which is a very quick and simple test and can be used to monitor the occurrence of hydatidosis in endemic areas so that effective preventive and control measures can be undertaken to eradicate this disease.

Keywords: ELISA, flow through assay, hydatid fluid antigen, hydatidosis, serodiagnosis