Problem Description:
Brucellosis in Indian livestock is responsible for a median loss of US $ 3.4 billion/annum (INR 22554 crores) and it is also well-known zoonotic disease. Veterinary institutions were procuring imported ELISA kits for brucellosis surveillance/ diagnosis till the year 2012 as indigenously developed surveillance test kits were not available in India. The screening and diagnosis using imported ELISA kits results in increased testing cost/ sample and it has direct impact on national exchequer. Hence, research was initiated to develop indirect ELISA to make it available locally at much lesser cost than imported kits.:
Solution Description:
India has huge bovine population and brucellosis is considered second most important disease of economic importance after FMD. To screen huge bovine population against brucellosis, ELISA diagnostic kit was standardized, evaluated and validated. The kit has 98% and 92% sensitivity and 95% and 98% specificity in cattle and buffaloes, respectively. The patent has been obtained for the kit [Patent No. 335659 dated 20.04.2020]. A total of 298 kits were supplied to 60 veterinary institutions from the year 2012 to till date with the limited laboratory scaling facility. ICAR –NIVEDI Protein-G based iELISA kits are very popular in the country and these kits have facilitated brucellosis screening in1.60 lakh bovines in various institutions. The NIVEDI- iELISA kit cost / sample testing is approximately Rs 35.10 (in duplicate samples) against Rs 178.26/ sample by imported ELISA kits (in duplicate samples).