Serum neutralization assay can efficiently replace plaque reduction neutralization test for detection and quantitation of West Nile virus antibodies in human and animal serum samples

A serum neutralization assay (SN) was compared with the official plaque reduction neutralization test for the quantitation of West Nile virus antibodies. A total of 1,348 samples from equid sera and 38 from human sera were tested by these two methods. Statistically significant differences were not observed, thus supporting the use of SN for routine purposes.