Tool to detect NDV developed
RESEARCHERS from the College of Veterinary Science and Luzon State University ( CLSU) have developed a technology that can provide an alternative method for detecting the Newcastle Disease Virus ( NDV).
The method is more affordable, simple yet sensitive and more robust for surveillance and control of NDV.
The technology was generated through the project, “Phylogenetic Characterization and Detection Using Dry Format RT Disease Virus [ NDV] in the Philippines,” which is funded by the Bureau of Agricultural Research ( BAR).
According to Clarissa Yvonne Domingo, project leader, NDV is a serious, contagious and fatal viral disease that affects species of birds. Currently, it’s a major concern in poultry production since it can kill thousands of chickens. The symptoms in chicken generally include gastrointestinal, respiratory and neurological signs, and may vary from subclinical to sudden death with 100- percent mortality. While mortality is very high among unvaccinated poultry flocks, it can still infect and cause deaths among vaccinated poultry.
“The key to control and successfully eradicate the NDV disease is to detect it as early as possible and prevent it to spread,” said Domingo, who with her team formulated a dry transcription- loop- mediated isothermal amplification that is an alternative nucleic acid amplification based ( NAB) assay for detecting NDV.
This test assay is rapid, simple, sensitive and very convenient to use by any adapting veterinary poultry practitioner or an animal diagnostician working in a laboratory with simple resources. It can be used for early NDV detection.
- posed of premixes or readymixed substance that are dried and stabilized in a single tube using a cryprotectant to prolong the shelf life at ambient temperature.
Domingo explained that the - moves the need for storing the tubes at freezing temperature, so they can now be kept at room temperature. This feature also removes the fear of reagent degradation and assures that the diagnosis of newcastle disease in local poultry farms in endemic areas would be faster.
However, because of its very high sensitivity, the assay must be handled carefully free from contamination in order to get full efficiency of the dry RT