African swine fever. I. Antiserum production.

These studies report on the production of African swine fever antiserum for use in serological tests. The first attempt to obtain antiserum was made by inoculating ASF virus - infected pig blood into the lactiferous sinus of lactating bovines. This failed to result in the development of detectable antibody, but resulted in propagation of the virus over a 14 to 21 day period. In the second attempt use was made of a tissue culture - attenuated virus to produce resistance in normal pigs. Clinical response to inoculation with the attenuated virus was limited to a one day increase of temperature. These pigs were subsequently orally exposed to virulent ASF virus and later challenged by intramuscular injection. The sera were subjected to testing by the modified direct complement-fixation test and the agar gel double-diffusion technique in order to follow the development of antibodies. Some sera were also conjugated with fluorescein isothiocyanate and used for the detection of viral antigen by the fluorescent antibody technique. It was found that inoculation with the attenuated virus brought about the development of low antibody levels in the pigs. This antibody level did not increase following oral exposure. One pig following intramuscular challenge underwent a series of ascending temperature peaks, coinciding with increased complement-fixing titres.