Rural chicken production is one of the most important activities at every households in the Bamenda Highlands and Cameroon as a whole (Ekue et al., 2002). However, one of the major constraints to the full development of this village chicken continuesto be Newcastle disease (ND) (Agbedeeto/., 1992).Infact,circulatingstrains of Newcastle disease virus easily decimate all unprotected flocks. Hence village chicken farmers lose large numbers of their birds to Newcastle disease morbidities that occur every year. To appreciate the importance of ND in rural poultry, serological tests are essential to determine the prevalence of the disease in unvaccinated flocks and verify their response to vaccination. Kits for the detection of antibodies against the Newcastle disease virus (NDV) using enzyme - linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) are available commercially. The Animal Production Unit of the FAO/ IAEA Biotechnology laboratory has designed diagnostic kits, which are robust enough to withstand temperature fluctuations and transit delays in tropical countries.This study describes the serological survey of the ND status of village chickens using one of these kits for the detection of bovine antibodies against Brucella to detect chicken antibodies against NDVbased on the prototype kit first described by Bell et ai, (1991). The study area comprised two zones situated one in the high altitude cold area Santa and the other in a low altitude warm area Ndop. In each zone two sets of birds: vaccinated and unvaccinated groups were identified with wing or leg tags. The identified birds were vaccinated by eye drop method (Anon, 1991 ) using the locally available freeze dried ND vaccine. Calibration of the eye dropper was done to know the exact dose rate per bird according to Alders and Spradbrow (2001) following formula:
展开▼