Evaluation of different methods for preventing the African swine fever virus

Abstract

African swine fever (ASF) is a contagious disease of key importance that occurs in wild boar population and domestic pigs. To date, there is no vaccine or treatment available, hence disease surveillance and stamping out in case of an outbreak is the only way to control it. A duplex ASF-IC real-time PCR assay was optimised using field samples obtained in Lithuania and results of singleplex and duplex real-time PCR assays allowing the identification of the ASF virus were compared. The specificity and sensitivity of ASF virus detection was validated using a reference sample of positive and negative virus nucleic acid and ASF virus positive and negative samples obtained from animals in Lithuania. Results prove that duplex ASF-IC real-time PCR assay provides a rapid, sensitive, and reliable molecular tool for ASF virus detection in wild boar population and domestic pigs. In general, it was found that duplex ASF-IC real-time PCR assay proves to be faster and more sensitive than singleplex real-time PCR and therefore has a high potential to be applied in routine analysis.