Epidemiological studies on bluetongue virus infection in West Java, Indonesia

In monitoring of sentinel cattle in West Java, seroconversions to orbiviruses occurred mostly at the end of the wet season. A low altitude site gave more reactors than did a high altitude site. Due to perceived inefficiencies of the agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) test, a competitive ELISA (C-ELISA) was applied and the results compared with the AGID test results. C-ELISA detected antibodies at an earlier stage of infection than did the AGID test. Not all sera reacting in the AGID test reacted in C-ELISA, suggesting that the C-ELISA is more specific in detecting bluetongue virus (BTV) antibodies than the AGID. However, as the infection status of most field sera was not known, this could not be confirmed conclusively from the available data. A comparison of isolation methods indicated that isolates were obtained more frequently if samples were passaged in embryonated eggs before blind passage in A edes albopictus cells followed by passage in BHK-21 cells. Six BTV serotypes, 1,7,9,12,20,21 and 23 were identified and confirmed from apparently healthy sentinel cattle blood at low altitudes; BTV serotype 21 was also isolated from a pool of the Avaritia sub-genus of the Culicoides spp which contained 227 C. fulvus and 20 C. orientalis. (author). 17 refs, 2 figs, 1 tab