Researchers under the leadership of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a test to detect Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in a matter of hours.
The multiplex assay, which has yet to be validated, simultaneously screens for both DNA and RNA viruses. It can detect FMD and six other look-alike diseases in livestock including vesicular exanthema of swine, swine vesicular disease, bovine viral diarrhea, bluetongue, bovine herpes-1 and the parapox virus complex. The collaborative project, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), involved researchers from the LLNL, the DHS Plum Island Animal Disease Center, UC Davis, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and the National Animal Health Laboratories Network (NAHLN).
Using this test, the NAHLN laboratories could test for all seven diseases in about 5 hours thus greatly enhancing the speed of diagnosis which is critically important during a FMD outbreak. One estimate indicates that a FMD outbreak would cost the U.S. approximately $3 million for every hour’s delay in diagnosis.
The collaborators also developed a high-throughput, semi-automated system that permits the analysis of 1,000 animal specimen samples within a 10-hour period using two robotic workstations and two technicians. This platform increases the normal sample processing capacity by about 10-fold per day and is adaptable for use with other assays including those that test for human diseases.