Studies on Duck Virus Hepatitis

Investigations on duck hepatitis virus (DHV) infeotion in duoks were carried out using conventional and newly developed methods for the diagnosis of the infection.For the serodiagnosis of DHV infection, a trial has been done to utilize the micro-agar gel pre- cipitin (AGE) and indirect haemagglutination (IRA)tests; along with the virus neutralization (VN) testas a standard procedure, for screening some Government- al and farmers duck flocks for DHV-serum antibodies. Inthe former tests, a partially purified and ooncentrated whole embryo (PPGWE) antigen, prepared from chicken(G•74) of Asplin type I by treatment with chloroform and dialysis against polyethylene glycol, was princip-ally used. For the VN test, a virus dose of 103 ELD50 ot ~ha G-74 isolate was used in a simplified procedure.Furthermore, direct detection of DHV antigen was attempted by the AGP test in livers formed suspeat- ed naturally infected ducklings aand tissues from chicken eggs inoculated with liver