Technology Details:
Equine piroplasmosis is an acute, sub-acute or chronic tick-borne disease of equines, caused by an intra-erythrocytic haemo-protozoa Theileria equi or Babesia caballi. A significant segment of the Indian equine population (~35%) is latently infected and the diagnosis of these animals is of more relevance to preventing the spread of the parasitic infection to naïve animals. In an effort to provide a farmer-friendly field test kit, the Centre has successfully developed lateral flow assay (LFA) for the diagnosis of T. equi infection. The kit is based on a recombinant T. equi merozoite surface antigen (EMA-2) conjugated with gold-nano particles. LFA kit results were comparable with ELISA, cELISA (VMRD, USA format), MASP in vitro culture and PCR. The diagnostic sensitivity (Dsn) and specificity (Dsp) of LFA vis-à-vis ELISA were 0.945 and 0.916, respectively, indicating its applicability to the field samples. LFA kit offers many advantages as compared to ELISA, such as no equipment or trained personnel needed and visually readable results obtained within 10 minutes.