Detecting African swine fever virus using direct multiplex PCR from whole blood

Abstract

African swine fever virus (ASFV) is a harmful virus that causes highly contagious and lethal disease in pigs, resulting in enormous economic loss. Currently, there are no effective vaccines and treatments available, disease control mainly relies on culling pigs, leading to a huge need in detecting ASFV as fast and reliably as possible (Lu, S. et al., 2020). As ASFV severely affects the husbandry sector of many low- and middle-income countries (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2022), simple and low-cost direct multiplex PCR assay for ASF diagnostic should be preferred. The African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes African swine fever, which has a death rate close to 100%. It has costed economies all over the world a lot of money. Without a good vaccine, controlling outbreaks depends on how quickly and accurately they can be found on-site. Here, we make a multiplex and visual detection platform by putting together multiplex PCR and the limit of detection. Primers that were used as an internal control (ESR) and to find the p72 carrier gene (PPA-1/2) were improved and made more sensitive and effective. Also, the fact that the amount of blood used during diagnosis went up shows that the direct multiplex PCR method works well and quickly instead of taking more time to get DNA from blood samples.