Technological advances in veterinary diagnostics: opportunities to deploy rapid decentralised tests to detect pathogens affecting livestock

Abstract

Sustainable food production capable of feeding a growing human population is a significant global challenge, and is a priority encompassed within the United Nations Millennium Development Goal to 'eradicate extreme poverty and hunger'. Infectious diseases reduce the productivity of farm animals, and the globalised trade of animals and their products increases the threat of disease incursion. Accurate and rapid diagnostic tests are an essential component of contingency plans to detect, control and eradicate such diseases. Diagnosis involves a 'pipeline' that normally starts with clinical suspicion, followed by collecting samples, transporting specimens to a centralised laboratory setting (e.g. national/international Reference Laboratories), analysing these samples using a range of diagnostic tests and reporting the results. However, the transport of specimens from the field to the laboratory can be a lengthy process that can delay critical decision-making and severely affect the quality of the samples. This important limitation of centralised diagnostic testing has motivated the development of tools for the rapid, simple detection of livestock pathogens. Recent advances in the development of technologies for personalised human medicine have motivated the development of prototype diagnostic tests for a wide selection of diseases of livestock. However, many of these tests are not yet routinely used or commercially available. This paper critically reviews the most promising examples of such assays, and highlights the challenges that remain to transition these tests from applied research and development into routine use.

New frontiers in applied veterinary point‐of‐capture diagnostics: Toward early detection and control of zoonotic influenza

“…New advances in molecular diagnostics have paved the way for affordable, highly sensitive and specific point‐of‐capture diagnostics . The downscaling in size of nucleic acid extraction and high‐speed real‐time PCR platforms is opening new opportunities for utility at or near the source of collection .…”

“…New advances in molecular diagnostics have paved the way for affordable, highly sensitive and specific point‐of‐capture diagnostics . The downscaling in size of nucleic acid extraction and high‐speed real‐time PCR platforms is opening new opportunities for utility at or near the source of collection . In many cases, advancements in developing rapid, point‐of‐capture real‐time PCR platforms have been pioneered for veterinary applications, facilitating diagnosis and treatment in companion animal medicine as well as management and control of infectious disease affecting livestock production …”

Comparative evaluation of different antigen detection methods for the detection of peste des petits ruminants virus

“…There are numerous attempts to develop rapid and reliable tests for PPR diagnosis under field conditions (Ashraf et al., 2017; Baron et al., 2014; Li et al., 2018; Mahapatra et al., 2019). The objective is a simple test with little additional laboratory equipment, which enables rapid results with adequate sensitivity and specificity (Baron et al., 2016; Howson et al., 2017). Therefore, we compared several commercially available rapid detection tests for PPRV.…”

Characterising Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus in Clinical Samples Using Nanopore Sequencing

“…The sequencing platforms routinely used for characterisation of FMDV are limited to use in well-equipped laboratories or core facilities as they require sample preparation, expensive and sophisticated equipment, and computational resources for data analysis (12). Although these platforms can provide an accurate and in-depth analysis of sample sequences, samples must be transported to the laboratory, potentially negatively affecting the quality of samples and may delay important decision making with regards to disease control (13). This is particularly the case for FMDV where in many endemic settings resources are often limited and there can be considerable logistical challenges in getting samples to a laboratory in a timely manner.…”