Immunostick development for Bovine Brucellosis rapid tests in the field

Brucellosis caused by Brucella abortus is a reproductive disease that infects ruminants commonly found in Indonesia. The Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Indonesia, through the Directorate of Livestock and Animal Health, has determined Brucellosis as one of the national strategic infectious diseases that needs to be prioritized. One of the efforts is to develop diagnostic tools that are more accurate and easy to apply in the field. One of the diagnostic methods that has high accuracy is the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) based on enzymatic reactions and antigen-antibody reactions. The weakness of this method is that it cannot be implemented in real time in the field, so it is necessary to develop a new method based on the same technology. One option is immunostick for rapid test in the field. Immunostick validation for the detection of brucellosis was carried out using bovine sera with known status as true positive and true negative. The test results on the diagnostic performance showed that the accuracy, specificity and sensitivity of the detection reached 98.70%, 97.29% and 100% respectively. Immunostick also shown excellent utility for screening (ruling out) and case finding (confirmation) tests. The inter-assay agreement to RBT (rose bengal test)-CFT (complement fixation test)-ELISA also showed very good results (k=0.96 – 0.97).