Comparison of immunochromatographic rapid test with molecular method in diagnosis of canine parvovirus

Background: canine parvovirus (cpv) infection is one of the most common causes of infectious gastroenteritis in dogs and is a highly contagious, often fatal disease. the original virus (cpv type 2) has had some mutations since its emergence and new variants (cpv-2a, 2b and 2c) have been reported from many countries all around the world. early diagnosis and treatment can profoundly affect the disease outcome. objectives: to compare the ability of immunochromatographic (ic) test to detect cpv infection in 50 pcr positive samples (n=50) with regard to virus strains. methods: 50 rectal swabs (n=50) were prepared from suspicious dogs and subjected to pcr and ic test respectively. results: the sensitivity of ic test in pcr positive samples was 84% (42 out of 50 samples) and the positive predictive value of the test was 100%. using pcr, cpv strains in our study were 2a (18/50, 36%) and 2b (32/50, 64%) with the predominance of 2b strain. ic test was also able to diagnose 15/18 (83.3%) of cpv-2a and 27/32 (84.3%) cpv-2b strain positive samples, which means ic test can detect cpv infections caused by both virus strains (2a and 2b), without significant difference. conclusions: this study shows that ic test results are relatively reliable for diagnosing cpv infection in daily veterinary practice and the test is able to diagnose both cpv-2a and cpv-2b which are prevalent strains in iran.