Comparison of detection methods for bovine viral diarrhea virus in bovine abortions and neonatal death.

The objective of this study was to examine a monoclonal antibody-based immunohistochemical staining method for its efficacy in diagnosis of bovine virus diarrhea virus (BVDV)-induced abortion and neonatal calf death. This method was compared to viral isolation and immunofluorescence staining of frozen tissue sections. Tissues from 105 cases, 53 fetuses and 52 neonates, were tested by the 3 methods. There were significant numbers of both false negatives and false positives with the immunofluorescence method and significant numbers of false negatives with the viral isolation method. Of the methods tested, immunohistochemical staining using monoclonal antibody 15C5 performed best, differentiating 97% of positive and negative cases. These results indicated that immunohistochemical staining can be applied to improve the accuracy of BVDV diagnosis in cases of abortion and perinatal death.