A solid-phase blocking ELISA for detection of antibodies to Nipah virus.

A monoclonal antibody (MAb) based solid-phase blocking ELISA was developed for detection of antibodies to Nipah virus. The ELISA was designed to detect remaining antigens on the plate with anti-Nipah MAb conjugate after the reaction with sample serum, and enabled simple procedure, detection of neutralizing antibody to Nipah virus, and application of samples from different animal species. Forty of 200 swine reference sera examined were positive by the ELISA, of which thirty seven were found positive by serum neutralization test. Sera from a total of 131 fruit bats captured in Malaysia were also tested and all found negative by the both tests. It is considered that the solid-phase blocking ELISA can be used as a screening test for Nipah virus infection followed by the serum neutralization test as confirmatory test.