Summary

The Newcastle disease management plan (NDMP) is a national plan aimed at reducing the risk of Newcastle disease (ND) outbreaks in Australia via vaccination and surveillance. As part of the NDMP, vaccination titres of chickens are monitored to ensure adequate protection against Newcastle disease viruses. Currently the NDMP requires that vaccination titres are assessed using the haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test in laboratories which are NATA accredited for the test. Alternatives to the HI test include enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), which is some cases may be easier to perform and more efficient. However, a direct comparison between the HI and ELISA test has not been conducted in the Australian context and until this has been done, cannot be recommended by the NDMP. This project aims to compare the current HI test with various commercially available ND ELISA kits, in order to assess the equivalency of these tests and whether they are fit for purpose.

Program

Chicken Meat

Research Organisation

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

Objective Summary

The major objectives of the project are as follows:

1. To identify the range of commercial ELISA kits that are available within Australia and would be the preferred kits to be used by both the poultry industry, government, university and private laboratories.
2. To identify a maximum of three ELISA kits to be used for further equivalency testing and comparative validation.
3. To determine if each of these kits are fit for purpose (i.e. are able to detect antibodies derived from vaccination).
4. To test each of these assays for equivalency with the HI test, noting that the current NDMP requires differing titres to be achieved depending on the situation (i.e. >23 for broilers in some states but >25 for some long-lived birds)
5. To provide a comparative validation data file based on this testing.