Bulgarian Journal of Veterinary Medicine (2011), 14 , No 2, 103− 108 COMPARISON OF ANTIGEN DETECTION METHODS OF PESTE DES PETITS RUMINANTS VIRUS IN CLINICAL SAMPLES OF SMALL RUMINANTS M. ABUBAKAR 1,2 , S. ASHIQ 3 , Z. HUSSAIN 3 , M. HUSSAIN 3 , SH. SALEHA 3 , M. J. ARSHED 2 & A. BIN ZAHOOR 4 1 PARC Institute of Advance Studies in Agriculture (PIASA), NARC; 2 National Veterinary Laboratory; 4 Animal Sciences Institute, NARC; Park Road, Islamabad; 3 Department of Microbiology, Kohat University of Science and Technology, Kohat, Pakistan Summary Abubakar, M., S. Ashiq, Z. Hussain, M. Hussain, Sh. Saleha, M. J. Arshed & A. Bin Za- hoor, 2011. Comparison of antigen detection methods of peste des petits ruminants virus in clinical samples of small ruminants. Bulg. J. Vet. Med., 14, No 2, 103−108. Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an acute and highly contagious viral disease of small ruminants such as goats and sheep. The diagnosis of PPR infection in sheep and goats populations can be strengthened with detection of antigen in clinical samples of susceptible populations. In present study, the PPR virus antigen detection was investigated and compared in clinical sheep and goat sam- ples by agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID), haemagglutination (HA) tests and immuno-capture ELISA (IC-ELISA). The viral antigen was detected from 8.95% of the samples tested by AGID, 20.9% tested by HA test and 34.3% tested by IC-ELISA. Kappa statistics scores for HA versus AGID, IC-ELISA versus AGID and HA versus IC-ELISA were 0.45 (95% confidence interval CI 0.158–0.742), 0.359 (95% CI 0.01–0.69) and 0.035 (95% CI 0.309–0.694), respectively, and indi- cated a non-significant agreement between the tests. The major findings of this study were that the HA test was more sensitive than AGID for detection of PPRV antigen, but IC-ELISA was the most sensitive of all three. The rapid detection of viral antigen by appropriate methods will help in early diagnosis of infection and subsequent control of the PPR disease in Pakistan. Key words: antigen detection, agar gel immunodiffusion test, ELISA, haemagglutination test, peste des petits ruminants virus INTRODUCTION Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an acute and highly contagious viral disease of small ruminants such as goats and sheep. PPR virus (PPRV) is a member of the genus Morbillivirus, family Para- myxoviridae. It has a single-strand nega- tive sense RNA genome of ~16 kb (15,948 nucleotides) in length that en- codes eight proteins including six struc- tural proteins: nucleoprotein (N), phos- phoprotein (P), matrix protein (M), fusion protein (F), haemagglutinin protein (H) and large polymerase protein (L), and two nonstructural proteins V and C (Bailey et al., 2005; Chard et al., 2008). Abubakar et al. (2008) have reported dramatic consequences with morbidity of 80–90% and mortality between 50 and 80% due to infection of PPRV in small ruminants. In Pakistan, it causes eco-