Indigenous kits to detect diseases in livestock

Scientists at Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) have come out with two new inexpensive and effective kits to detect two diseases common in the livestock.

Researchers at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar have developed ELISA kits to quickly spot Japanese encephalitis (JE) among pigs and bluetongue in sheep, cattle, goats and camels at a price affordable to Indian farmers. Compared to the Rs 52,000 commercial kits for the JE available in the market, the indigenous diagnostic tool costs only Rs 5,000. Each kit can be used to test around 45 samples. The bluetongue kit, too, costs Rs 5,000-6,000 in the laboratory and commercial production would further bring down the cost, an ICAR official told DH.

The indigenous JE kit would be useful to spot active infections in the swine population, preceding the outbreak of the disease in the humans. Because of its ability to quickly detect the infection, the bluetongue diagnosis tool can help control the spread of the disease.