ELISA test for rabies antibody titration in orally vaccinated foxes sampled in the fields

Abstract

The assessment of the efficacy of rabies oral vaccination campaigns requires the titration of specific antibodies in the target species. Unfortunately, in Continental Europe, most fox serum samples are in fact "body fluids" taken from cadavers and the lack of a validated titration method for these poor quality sera made it impossible to survey and compare the efficacy of various oral vaccination protocols used by the different European teams. By using ready to use microplates sensitised with rabies virus glycoprotein purchased from a manufacturer and applying a simple and rapid ELISA technique on field fox sera, we obtained antibody quantitation highly correlated with seroneutralising antibody titres measured with a seroneutralisation test on cell culture. We obtained, with fox sera sampled in the same area, the same distribution of high, medium and low titres within all categories of serum quality (from high to very poor quality) and therefore conclude that this ELISA test allows a reliable titration even with highly contaminated body fluids. This test was shown to be equally capable of detecting rabies antibodies in serum samples taken from foxes vaccinated with an highly attenuated rabies virus (the SAG2 double mutant of the Street Alabama Dufferin strain) or with the VRG, the Vaccinia recombinant glycoprotein. Additionally, a strong correlation was demonstrated between titres given by this ELISA (or by the seroneutralisation test) and protection against challenge of foxes orally vaccinated with SAG2 vaccine baits. In view of this validation, this simple and reliable test is proposed for sero-surveying foxes following rabies oral vaccination campaigns.