A case study of enzootic bovine leukosis in an Albanian dairy herd based on se-rological and hematological test results

Abstract

Enzootic bovine leukosis (EBL) is a notifiable infectious disease with sporadic fre-quency in Albania. EBL is not a zoonotic disease, but it has an important impact on the cattle trade. Diagnosis of this disease can be performed by many diagnostic proce-dures, including agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. In some cases, where persis-tent lymphocytosis is present, cell count can turn useful. This study aimed to evaluate serological and hematological tests' suitability for the diagnosis of EBL and assess the manual and automatic hematological count technique diagnostic parameters com-pared to the serological test. Results suggest that strategic use of hematological and AGID tests in parallel can increase the sensitivity of diagnosis and facilitate the detec-tion of infected animals in different disease stages. Moreover, our results indicate that this approach is feasible in small scale cattle herds size, which properly fits Albanian circumstances