Reverse passive haemagglutination test in the diagnosis of infectious bursal disease.

The reverse passive haemagglutination test (RPHA) was used to detect infectious bursal disease (IBD) virus antigen in various organs of experimentally infected chickens and field cases. The results of RPHA were compared with those of agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID) and latex agglutination (LAT) tests. IBD antigen was detected in 86.4%, 80.4% and 80.5% of different organs by RHPA, LAT and AGID respectively. Although the differences are not statistically significant, the LAT is recommended because of cost and speed of obtaining results.