Comparison of ear notch immunohistochemistry, ear notch antigen-capture ELISA, and buffy coat virus isolation for detection of calves persistently infected with bovine viral diarrhea virus.

Two techniques performed on skin biopsy samples (ear notches), immunohistochemistry (IHC) and antigen-capture ELISA (AgELISA), were compared for detection of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) persistent infection (PI) in 559 Angus calves between the ages of 1 and 5 months. The calves also were tested for BVDV infection using virus isolation (VI) and reverse transcription (RT)-PCR on buffy coat samples and for antibodies to BVDV types la and 2 by serum neutralization (SN). Sixty-seven of 559 (12.