This may have been partly due to the selection of a
single tissue for culture, and also in variation in the choice of tissue
selected for culture, ultimately resulting in an apparent poor correlation
with the serological status of individual animals in infected
herds. In the latter stages of the brucellosis eradication programme
in Ireland, an opportunity became available to assess the relative
sensitivities of culture and serology in identifying individual infected
animals within herds, with the prime objective of evaluating the
sensitivity of culture to confirm infection in seropositive animals.