Since EIA is an infectious disease and there are infected animals with no apparent symptoms, it is necessary to perform a diagnostic assay to detect the infected animals.

Due to the persistence of EIA virus in inapparent carriers, detection of EIA virus serum antibodies confirms the diagnosis of EIA infection.

The official test recognized as OIE (Office International des Epizooties or World Organization for Animal Health) is the AGID agar gel immunodiffusion test. This test is officially accepted in Brazil for the national control program of equine health.

The AGID is a very specific, easy to perform and very sensitive test. In the AGID test, there is a radial diffusion of the antigen and the serum molecules in the agar, which precipitate when there is the formation of the antigen-antibody complex.

Bruch Laboratories uses the p26 antigen because it is an internal structural protein of the virus which is stable and do not change among different samples. The Standard serum is a positive serum collected from horses infected with EIA virus. This serum has an identity reaction with a known positive serum.

Create your own web pages in minutes...

How do I know if my horse has Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA)?