Foot-and-mouth disease non-structural protein serology in cattle: Use of a Bayesian framework to estimate diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of six ELISA tests and true prevalence in the field

The diagnostic performance of six foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) assays for detection of antibodies to the non-structural proteins (NSP) of the FMD virus (FMDV) was estimated using a Bayesian analysis on field sera from cattle of unknown infection status originating from post-FMDV outbreak situations in Israel and Zimbabwe. Estimations of the disease prevalence in both populations were also obtained. The diagnostic sensitivity estimates did not differ between both field studies, although overall Bayesian estimates were markedly higher than those previously reported based on sera from comparable experimentally infected (vaccinated) cattle populations. All NSP-based assays demonstrated a lower diagnostic specificity when applied to the Zimbabwean sera compared to both published specificities and similar Bayesian specificity estimates derived for the Israeli dataset. In Israel, the disease prevalence was estimated at 23.9% (95% credibility interval: 19.5–28.8%), whereas 65.4% (59.0–72.5%) was found in Zimbabwe. The need for reliable diagnostic test performance estimates and the benefits of Bayesian analysis in obtaining them are also addressed.