VECTOR TEST SYSTEMS — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.300000000000001

Description

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and lethal viral disease of domestic andwild pigs which is responsible for serious economic and production losses. It is caused by theASF virus a large DNA virus of the Asfarviridae family which also infects ticks of the genusOrnithodoros. The ability of the virus to infect and be transmitted by long-lived and difficult tocontrol ticks has contributed to the problem of control and eradication. Another drawback is thatthe virus is relatively environmentally stable and can survive processes that are normally lethal toviruses. Acute forms of ASF are characterized by high fever depression anorexia and loss ofappetite abortion in pregnant sows cyanosis vomiting diarrhea and death within 6-14 days.Mortality rates may be as high as 100%. Sub-acute and chronic forms are caused by moderatelyor low virulent viruses resulting in lower mortality rates but can still range from 30-70%. Withan estimated 6 million feral pigs and potentially susceptible tick vectors in the U.S. ASFV couldbe easily established and spread rapidly here (Brown and Bevins 2018). One estimate is that theintroduction of ASFV could have an economic impact of over $10B in just one year (Hayes etal. 2011). An effective vaccine is not yet available and one that would be commerciallyavailable will take a long time.Prevention and early detectionplay a key role in the control strategy for ASF andenhancing early detection would also improve the efficacy of disease control measures. VecTORTest Systems Inc. will work on developing rapid immuno-chromatographic assays for detectionof ASF-specific IgG and IgM in infected animals. We will initiate this development withreagents developed at the Biosecurity Research Institute (BRI) at Kansas State University thefirst and only nonfederal facility in the U.S. that has been approved to work with ASFV. In PhaseI feasibility of the concept will be confirmed by developing prototype ASFV-antibody assaysthat utilizes the most promising reagents available currently. In addition development of theASFV antigen detection assay will be initiated during Phase I. The technology is based on thesimple and reliable immuno-chromatographic detection method by which sensitive test-stripbased assays provide results in less than 30 minutes. The proposed assays will be easy to performand results easy to interpret with minimal training. The assay will be made available in a kit withall the components required to perform the assay. The assay kit will be stable at ambient storageconditions for 2 years.