News Applications Swine
New detection method available for African swine fever virus

Biotechnology company Tetracore has introduced a real-time PCR test for the detection of African swine fever virus (ASFV) in swine whole blood and spleen samples. The test is licensed by the USDA’s Center for Veterinary Biologics and is the first USDA-licensed diagnostic product for ASFV. It is manufactured in the U.S. and provides animal health first responders with a tool to mitigate the impacts of an ASFV outbreak.

Tetracore evaluated contemporary ASFV viral sequences as well as sequences to the last 24 known ASFV genotypes in order to design a primer-probe set that took virus mutations and evolutions into mind.

Concerns about ASFV began earlier this year, and in July, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed that it had detected cases of ASFV in the Dominican Republic, marking the first official instances of the disease in the Northern hemisphere.

While ASFV is not a threat to human health, it is known that an outbreak in the U.S. would cause massive economic disruption to the country’s pork production industry, which could be especially concerning for states such as Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Illinois and Indiana.