Standardisation and establishment of a rabies ELISA test in European laboratories for assessing the efficacy of oral fox vaccination campaigns.

A simple and rapid enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect rabies antibodies in field fox sera has been standardised and established in several European laboratories. The same panels of 100 coded sera were investigated by four laboratories using this ELISA assay and reference serum neutralisation techniques (fluorescent antibody virus neutralisation (FAVN) test and rapid fluorescent focus inhibition test (RFFIT)). This indirect ELISA technique is highly correlated with conventional seroneutralisation test on cell culture.