ABSTRACT
Caprine arthritis encephalitis (CAE) is an infectious multisystemic disease caused by a lentivirus, and affects goats at all ages. Main clinical signs of the disease are leukoencephalomyelitis, which affects kids and arthritis, more frequent in adult animals. Lungs and the mammary gland may also be affected by the virus, causing, respectively, chronic interstitial pneumonia and indurative mastitis. The objective of the present trial was to compare the techniques used to aid CAE diagnosis - agar gel immunodiffusion, immunoenzymatic assay and indirect immunofluorescence - as well as to evaluate their sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity and specificity obtained in this trial for ELISA were 100% and 83.78%, respectively. Immunofluorescence technique presented sensitivity equal to 98.25% and specificity equal to 79.25%.
KEY WORDS:
Arthritis; encephalitis; caprine; immunodiffusion; immunoenzymatic assay; immunofluorescence.