Rapid detection of anti-Vaccinia virus neutralizing antibodies.

Increasing infections with Monkeypox and Cowpox viruses pose a continuous and growing threat to human health. The standard method for detecting poxvirus neutralizing antibodies is the plaque-reduction neutralization test that is specific but also time-consuming and laborious. Therefore, a rapid and reliable method was developed to determine neutralizing antibody titers within twelve hours. The new assay measures viral mRNA transcription as a marker for actively replicating virus after incomplete neutralization using real-time PCR.