Buffalo Bulletin (March 2014) Vol.33 No.1 94 ABSTRACT The present investigation was carried out to characterize buffalo cyst fluid and germinal membrane antigen by a double immuno diffusion test and immunoelectrophoresis. Attempts were also made to find out utility of antigen B for detection of cystic echinococcosis in buffalo by indirect enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (indirect ELISA). Hyperimmune sera raised against germinal membrane antigen and cyst fluid antigen has shown seroreactivity during the double immuno diffusion test and immunoelectrophoresis against germinal membrane antigen, cyst fluid antigen respectively as apparent by formation of precipitin lines and precipitation arc. A total of twenty sera samples (ten positive and negative samples each) of buffalo were used for indirect ELISA and the average optical density (O.D.) values of positive samples ranged from 0.498 to 0.783 with a mean of 0.655. The negative samples exhibited O.D. values ranged from 0.247 to 0.263 with a mean of 0.255. The cut-off value of the test system was 0.279. Keywords: cystic echinococcosis (CE), buffalo, antigen B, Echinococcus granulosus, serodiagnosis INTRODUCTION Cystic echinococcosis (CE) is a well- established cyclozoonotic disease which occurs throughout the world in animals and man. The parasite perpetuates through two different hosts. Canine serve as the definitive host of the parasite whereas ruminants and other ungulates serve as the intermediate host of the parasite. In the intermediate host, space-occupying lesion is produced by the cysts which develop mainly in the liver and lung (90%) (Gottstein, 1994) and as well as in other organs, namely, kidney, spleen, bone marrow, brain and heart. The protoscoleces can be seen in the fertile cyst fluid. The public health and economic importance of the disease is assessed in terms of human and animal involvement. The loss due to human involvement is appreciated by the number of infected persons, their reduced functional capacity, cost of hospitalization before and after surgery. In animals, the economic loss is mainly due to condemnation of infected carcasses besides retarded quality of milk, meat and wool. So far as the occurrence of the disease is concerned, CE has been well documented in Indian literature and the disease has been reported from the eastern and north eastern regions of India as Echinococcus granulosus ANTIGEN B FOR SERODIAGNOSOIS OF CYSTIC ECHINOCOCCOSIS IN BUFFALO (Bubalus bubalis) A. Maity 1 , D. Bhattacharya 2 , S. Batabyal 3 , S. Chattopadhyay 3 and A.K. Bera 2 1 College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar 751003, India, E-mail: toapu77@gmail.com 2 National Research Centre for Yak, Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh, India 3 West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, Kolkata 700037, WB, India Original Article