Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
Differences in Puppy Parvovirus Antibody Tests at Vet Clinic and Lab
By Dall'Ara, Paola et al.·Published in Frontiers in veterinary science·2021·Department of Veterinary Medicine, Italy·View original on PubMed →
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Original publication title: Discrepancy Between In-clinic and Haemagglutination-Inhibition Tests in Detecting Maternally-Derived Antibodies Against Canine Parvovirus in Puppies.
- Species:
- dog
Plain-English summary
A group of unvaccinated puppies was tested for protection against canine parvovirus (CPV) using two different methods. While a standard lab test showed that most puppies had protective antibodies from their mothers, an in-clinic test indicated that only a smaller percentage were protected. This discrepancy suggests that the in-clinic test might not be as reliable for measuring maternal antibodies in puppies. However, when some puppies were vaccinated, they developed protective antibodies, indicating that vaccination can still be effective even if the in-clinic test shows low maternal antibody levels.
People also search for: puppy parvovirus vaccination · canine parvovirus symptoms · how to test puppy for parvovirus · maternal antibodies in puppies
Abstract
Canine parvovirus (CPV) is one of the most common causes of mortality in puppies worldwide. Protection against CPV infection is based on vaccination, but maternally-derived antibodies (MDA) can interfere with vaccination. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of an in-clinic ELISA test to assess the CPV MDA in unvaccinated puppies and CPV antibodies in bitches, comparing the results with the gold standard haemagglutination inhibition (HI) test. Serum samples of 136 unvaccinated puppies were tested, along with sera of 16 vaccinated bitches. Five unvaccinated puppies were retested after vaccination. Both assays showed that the 16 vaccinated bitches had protective antibody levels against CPV. Conversely, significant discrepancies were observed for the MDA titers in unvaccinated puppies. Protective MDA titers were observed in 91.9% puppies using HI and in 40.4% by the in-clinic ELISA test, and only the latter one showed a decrease of MDA titers and percentages of protected puppies after the first weeks of age. Vaccination of five puppies with high HI and low in-clinic ELISA MDA titers resulted in seroconversion. Our results confirm the reliability of the in-clinic ELISA test in determining protective antibodies against CPV in adult dogs. Our findings also suggest that the in-clinic ELISA test kit may also be a useful tool to detect and quantify CPV MDA, thus allowing prediction of the best time to vaccinate puppies and reduction of the rate of vaccination failures due to interference by maternally-derived antibodies.
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Search related cases →Original publication on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33732742/