Henipavirus infection in fruit bats (Pteropus giganteus), India.

We tested 41 bats for antibodies against Nipah and Hendra viruses to determine whether henipaviruses circulate in pteropid fruit bats (Pteropus giganteus) in northern India. Twenty bats were seropositive for Nipah virus, which suggests circulation in this species, thereby extending the known distribution of henipaviruses in Asia westward by >1,000 km.

A comparative indirect ELISA for the detection of henipavirus antibodies based on a recombinant nucleocapsid protein expressed in Escherichia coli.

The indirect ELISA is a simple and useful method for detection of pathogen-specific antibodies in animal sera. However, non-specific or background binding is often a problem, especially when recombinant proteins from Escherichia coli are used. In this study, a comparative indirect ELISA in which the total reactivity and the background binding were determined simultaneously on the same ELISA plate was reported.