Hog cholera diagnostic techniques.

Clinical signs and lesions can sometimes provide the basis for a presumptive diagnosis of hog cholera (HC). However, an accurate diagnosis requires laboratory testing. The usual procedure for the detection of viral antigen is the examination of cryostat sections stained with fluorescein-conjugated HC antiserum. A more definitive technique is isolation of the virus in PK-15 cell cultures and identification of the viral antigen in cells using an HC fluorescent antibody conjugate. As bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) virus will cross-react with HC virus, isolation must be confirmed by the comparison of BVD and HC staining or, preferably, by the use of monoclonal antibodies that can differentiate between HC and BVD viruses. Hog cholera surveillance must rely on serology. The fluorescent antibody virus neutralization (FAVN) test is the classical technique, and HC and BVD antibody can usually be differentiated if HC-positive serum samples are tested against both viruses. Recently the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and peroxidase-labeled antibody tests have become the commonly used techniques.