Abstract
Hog cholera (HC), or classical swine fever, cannot be accurately differentiated from African swine fever (ASF) by clinical signs or lesions observed at necropsy. A well-equipped diagnostic laboratory with a trained staff is the only solution to this problem. Specimens should be submitted to the laboratory from pigs with lesions suspicious of HC or ASF. The best method for confirming HC in a laboratory with limited facilities is the fluorescent antibody tissue section technique. This procedure requires only three major pieces of equipment: microtome-cryostat, incubator, and fluorescence microscope. Tonsil is the specimen of choice and a biopsy of tonsil tissue may be obtained without killing the pig. Hog cholera virus may be isolated in pig kidney cell cultures (PK-15 cell line) from spleen or lymph node. The presence of the virus is detected by staining the inoculated cell cultures with anti-HC fluorescent antibody conjugate. The neutralization test (Nt) may be used to detect HC antibody titers in the serums of pigs surviving infection with strains of low virulence. However, bovine viral diarrhea virus infection will cause heterologous titers against HC virus. In addition, antibody titers produced by vaccination cannot be distinguished from those caused by natural infection.
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