A comparison of two serological methods for detecting the immune response after rabies vaccination in dogs and cats being exported to rabies-free areas.

Levels of rabies virus neutralizing antibody in sera from dogs and cats were titrated to endpoint by the Rapid Fluorescent Focus Inhibition Test (RFFIT) and retested by the RFFIT and the Fluorescent Antibody Virus Neutralization test (FAVN). The two tests were compared for their ability to detect the 0.5 international units/ml (I.U.) of antibody required by the World Health Organization and the Office International des Epizooties as the minimum response for proof of rabies immunization. No difference was observed in sensitivity or specificity for either method in tests of 168 sera from unvaccinated animals or 70 sera from vaccinated animals with high levels of neutralizing antibody (an initial RFFIT titre of > or = 1.0 I.U.). Test to test variation occurred for results obtained by both RFFIT and FAVN for 95 sera from vaccinated animals with low to moderate levels of neutralizing antibody (RFFIT titre < 1.0 I.U.). No significant differences were detected for the 95 sera in the frequency for one methodology more often than the other to have a positive response (> or = 0.5 I.U.), nor were significant differences detected for the symmetry (P = 0.43) or the marginal homogeneity (P = 0.39) of results obtained by the two methods. Both methods can adequately identity unvaccinated animals, but false positive and false negative results are possible for either method when a single test is used to measure the antibody response of low-responding vaccinated animals. Nucleotide sequence analysis identified several amino acid differences in stocks of the challenge rabies virus from different laboratories. The small differences in neutralizing antibody titre that may result from mutations in the challenge virus are not important for evaluating immunity induced by vaccines which are themselves prepared from a variety of different rabies virus strains, but differences in the challenge virus, rather than differences in methodology, may account for at least some of the discrepant results reported in inter-laboratory surveys. Comparative studies of serological methods for measuring rabies antibodies should use well-characterized unpassaged virus stocks obtained from a single reference laboratory.