Meat Juice and Oral Fluid as Alternatives to Serum for Aujeszky Disease Monitoring in Pigs

Aujeszky Disease Virus (ADV) is a double-stranded DNA virus with a lipoprotein envelope. The natural hosts of the infection are Suidae, but the virus can infect many other mammals. The gold-standard method identified by the WOAH for the diagnosis of Aujeszky disease is the ELISA method. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of meat juice and oral fluid matrices using a commercial ELISA kit designed for serum. A total of 80 blood and oral fluid samples were collected from four pig farms selected for this study. Diaphragm muscle samples of about 100 g and blood samples were collected from 213 animals at the abattoir. These biological matrices were collected from the same animals and tested using a competitive ELISA kit to detect antibodies against ADV. The relative accuracy of the meat juice compared to that of the serum was 96.7% (95% CI: 93.3–98.7%), with 206 correct results out of 213. The relative accuracy of the oral fluid compared to that of the serum was 61.3% (95% CI: 49.7–71.9%), with 58 correct results out of 80. Meat juice has a better combination of sensitivity and specificity than oral fluid. The usage of meat juice in routine diagnostic examinations could be achieved after further investigations to optimize the procedure.