Early Diagnosis and Surveillance of Transboundary and Emerging Viral Diseases of Animals, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Viruses".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 316

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Center for Foreign Animal Disease, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Interests: transboundary and emerging animal diseases
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Center for Foreign Animal Disease, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
Interests: african swine fever virus pathogenesis, diagnosis, and control; pathogenesis of novel strains and the virulence dynamics; identifying effective and alternative sample types as better surveillance tools

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Rapid and accurate identification is critical for the effective control and eradication of transboundary and emerging viral diseases. Most of these diseases cannot be differentially identified based on clinical signs, especially during the early stages of infection. The currently available diagnostic assays for transboundary viral diseases in animals are highly specific and sensitive; however, they are almost exclusively performed in central laboratories using sophisticated instrumentation by highly skilled laboratory staff. Some of the assays also require the use of live viruses and therefore cannot be performed outside high-containment laboratories, limiting their use. Furthermore, the sample types recommended for these assays are mostly based on individual animals, and therefore, the collection of these samples requires a substantial amount of human and financial resources and often causes undue stress to the animals. Hence, in order to enhance surveillance for transboundary diseases in both endemic and disease-free countries, novel diagnostic tools and approaches are required.

In this Special Issue, we will focus on novel diagnostic approaches for the rapid detection of transboundary and emerging diseases, both in the laboratory as well as in the field. This Special Issue offers an opportunity for the scientists to share high-quality research in the areas of the development and/or validation of novel and/or improved diagnostic assays that can be used in both low- and high-containment laboratories or in the field (portable assays). This Special Issue also welcomes studies conducted on the evaluation and/or validation of novel, alternative sample types that can be used for the early detection and/or the enhancement of ongoing surveillance of transboundary and emerging animal diseases.

Dr. Aruna Ambagala
Dr. Kalhari Goonewardene
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • diagnostics
  • surveillance
  • transboundary
  • emerging
  • animal diseases
  • virus
  • detection
  • validation
  • novel
  • sample types
  • alternative

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 1785 KiB  
Article
A Simplified mAb-Based Antigen Detection Assay for Rapid Serotyping of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus
by Mohammad A. Kashem, Thanuja Ambagala, Kate Hole, Ming Yang, Charles Nfon and Shawn Babiuk
Viruses 2025, 17(6), 761; https://doi.org/10.3390/v17060761 - 27 May 2025
Viewed by 144
Abstract
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a devastating infectious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals. Differentiating FMD from other vesicular diseases is difficult based on only clinical symptoms, requiring an appropriate laboratory diagnostic test. The double-antibody sandwich (DAS)-ELISA is a reliable diagnostic technique for antigen detection [...] Read more.
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a devastating infectious viral disease of cloven-hoofed animals. Differentiating FMD from other vesicular diseases is difficult based on only clinical symptoms, requiring an appropriate laboratory diagnostic test. The double-antibody sandwich (DAS)-ELISA is a reliable diagnostic technique for antigen detection and serotyping of FMDV. However, classical DAS-ELISAs use polyclonal antibodies (pAbs), which are inconsistent in yields and limited in large-scale applications compared to hybridoma cell-secreted laboratory-made monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Therefore, this study aimed to develop simplified and sensitive FMD serotype-specific DAS-ELISAs using HRP-conjugated mAbs and a TMB substrate. Six FMDV serotype-specific mAb-DAS-ELISAs were developed. All assays were optimized using BEI-inactivated FMD antigens. Real-time reverse-transcriptase PCR (RRT-PCR) was also used to verify the detection efficiency of all assays. Known negative and positive 10% tissue suspensions of different animal origins were examined to calculate the diagnostic specificity (DSp) and sensitivity (DSe). Serotype-specific mAb-DAS-ELISAs demonstrated 100%, 97%, 97%, 99%, 99%, and 94% DSp and 100%, 95%, 90%, 95%, 100%, and 100% DSe for serotypes O, A, Asia-1, SAT-1, SAT-2, and SAT-3, respectively. The detection efficiency of mAb-DAS-ELISAs was better than that of classical DAS-ELISAs. Also, all assays demonstrated minimal cross-reactivity and optimal reproducibility. Therefore, the mAb-DAS-ELISAs developed in this study could be useful for detecting and serotyping FMDV and ultimately replacing the classical DAS-ELISA. Full article
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