Animal and Plant Health Agency
Access to Information Team
OFFICIAL
Woodham Lane
www.gov.uk/apha
New Haw
Addlestone
Surrey
KT15 3NB
Ms Buckley
Our ref: FOI2024/00566
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
2 February 2024
Dear Ms Buckley,
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: Brucellosis testing sensitivity - specificity
Thank you for your request for information of 6th January about Brucellosis testing
sensitivity - specificity. APHA have handled your request under the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
Your information request and our response are set out below.
“Please can you tell me what the sensitivity and specificity (AND 95% confidence
interval) of the individual tests below are for the brucellosis tests used in the UK cattle
Brucellosis surveillance scheme:
1. iELISA
2. SAT
3. CFT
4. cELISA
AND
The overall sensitivity/specificity (+ 95% confidence interval) when conducting the serial
testing approach that is employed in this surveillance scheme.”
Section 21 - Information accessible by other means
The information that you have requested is publicly available as identified below. As the
information is reasonably accessible to you by other means, section 21 of the FOIA
exempts APHA from providing the information in this response to your request.
Under the FOIA APHA can rely on the application of the exemption.
Publicly available information:
The evaluation of the diagnostic properties of the English bovine brucellosis surveillance
system is very thoroughly described in an article published by APHA in 2020 – Foddai
et al 2020.
APHA is an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and also works on behalf of the Scottish
Government, Welsh Government and Food Standards Agency to safeguard animal and plant health for the benefit of people, the
environment and the economy.
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For the Brucella milk iELISA, diagnostic estimates were taken from Nielsen et al 1996
and Vanzini et al 2001.
For Brucella serum iELISA, diagnostic estimates were taken from McGiven et al 2003,
McGiven et al 2008a, McGiven et al 2008b and Thomson et al 2009.
For Brucella CFT the diagnostic estimates were taken from McGiven et al 2003.
The SAT (Brucella abortus antigen) is not used in the surveillance scheme. Neither is
the cELISA.
References
Foddai et al., 2020
A. Foddai, T. Floyd, J.McGiven, K. Grace, S. Evans
Evaluation of the English bovine brucellosis surveillance system considering probability
of disease introduction and non-random sampling
Prev. Vet. Med. 176 (2020
) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2020.104927 Nielsen et al., 1996
K. Nielsen, P. Smith, D. Gall, B. Perez, C. Cosma, P. Mueller, J. Trottier, G. Cote, L.
Boag, J. Bosse
Development and validation of an indirect enzyme immunoassay for detection of
antibody to Brucella abortus in milk
Vet. Microbiol., 52 (1996) pp.165-73
Vanzini et al., 2001
V.R. Vanzini, N.P. Aguirre, B.S. Valentini, S. Torioni de Echaide, C.I. Lugaresi, M.D.
Marchesino, K. Nielsen
Comparison of an indirect ELISA with the Brucella abortus milk ring test for detection of
antibodies to Brucella abortus in bulk milk samples
Vet. Microbiol., 82 (2001), pp. 55-60
McGiven et al., 2003
J.A. McGiven, J.D. Tucker, L. Perrett, J.A. Stack, S.D. Brew, A.P. MacMillan
Validation of FPA and cELISA for the detection of antibodies to Brucella abortus in
cattle sera and comparison to SAT, CFT, and iELISA
J. Immunol. Methods, 278 (2003), pp. 171-178
McGiven et al., 2008a
J. McGiven, L. Hendry, D. Brown, J. Stack, L. Perrett, I. Mawhinney
The improved specificity of bovine brucellosis testing in Great Britain
Res. Vet. Sci., 84 (2008), pp. 38-40
McGiven et al., 2008b
J.A. McGiven, J. Sawyer, L.L. Perrett, S.D. Brew, N.J. Commander, A. Fisher, S.
McLarnon, K. Harper, J.A. Stack
APHA is an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and also works on behalf of the Scottish
Government, Welsh Government and Food Standards Agency to safeguard animal and plant health for the benefit of people, the
environment and the economy
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A new homogeneous assay for high throughput serological diagnosis of brucellosis in
ruminants
J. Immunol. Methods, 337 (2008), pp. 7-15
Thomson et al., 2009
I. Thomson, J. McGiven, J. Sawyer, R. Thirlwall, N. Commander, J. Stack
Competitive electrochemilunescence wash and no-wash immunoassays for detection of
serum antibodies to smooth Brucella strains
Clin. Vaccine Immunol., 16 (2009), pp. 765-771
Information disclosed in response to this FOI request is releasable to the public. In
keeping with the spirit and effect of the FOIA and the government’s Transparency
Agenda, this letter and the information disclosed to you may be placed on
GOV.UK,
together with any related information that will provide a key to its wider context. No
information identifying you will be placed on the GOV.UK website.
An Annex is attached which explains the copyright that applies to the information being
released to you and contact details should you be unhappy with the service you have
received.
If you have any queries about this letter, please contact the Access to Information Team
at the email address below or postal address at the top of this letter.
Yours sincerely
Access to Information Team
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx
APHA is an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and also works on behalf of the Scottish
Government, Welsh Government and Food Standards Agency to safeguard animal and plant health for the benefit of people, the
environment and the economy
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Annex
Copyright
The information supplied to you continues to be protected by copyright. You are free to
use it for your own purposes, including for private study and non-commercial research,
and for any other purpose authorised by an exception in current copyright law.
Documents (except photographs or logos) can also be used in the UK without requiring
permission for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example
commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder.
Most documents produced by APHA will be protected by Crown Copyright. Most Crown
copyright information can be re-used under the
Open Government Licence. For
information about the OGL and about re-using Crown Copyright information please see
The National Archives website.
Copyright in other documents may rest with a third party. For information about
obtaining permission from a third party see the
Intellectual Property Office’s website.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your request, you
may make a complaint or appeal against our decision under section 17(7) of the FOIA
within 40 working days of the date of this letter. Please write to the Access to
Information Team at the address at the top of this letter or email
xxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx.xx and the team will arrange for an internal review of your case.
If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, section 50 of the FOIA
gives you the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a
decision. Please note that generally the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have
first exhausted APHA’s own complaints procedure.
The ICO can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
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Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Please
click here for further contact details.
APHA is an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and also works on behalf of the Scottish
Government, Welsh Government and Food Standards Agency to safeguard animal and plant health for the benefit of people, the
environment and the economy
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