This paper focuses on the development of rapid test kits for animals aimed at abating the high mortality losses brought about by insufficient disease surveillance and diagnostic systems and services. These are envisioned to improve investigation, diagnosis, and technical support for the control of animal diseases, particularly, in the Philippines. The author supervised projects that developed rapid test kits for important swine and poultry diseases, four of which were TADs. These rapid test kits detect the infectious antigen or the field virus responsible for the disease and not the virus used in modified live vaccines. The author’s projects developed dry RT-LAMP kits for ND, CSF, and PRRS viruses. These kits have a feature that significantly enhanced their specificity—the ability to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals.
The latest test kit developed that combined two technologies was the ASFV Nanogold Biosensor test kit. It is very versatile and can be a tool for environmental monitoring of the pathogen (EMP) for biosecurity profiling of a farm before repopulation. This is in line with the Philippine Department of Agriculture’s hog repopulation program. All these rapid test kits are now manufactured and commercialized by a private company that offers diagnostic services using the test kits. It markets the kits to veterinary practitioners, commercial farm owners who would like to set up their own laboratory inside the farm, entrepreneurs who would like to venture into distributing the test kits, suppliers of disinfectants and vaccines, and animal health researchers (thesis students) in the academe. Those who prefer to buy and use the kits by themselves are provided with a short training by the company. To safeguard the spread of TADs, rapid sensitive screening tests should be in place for early detection toward timely implementation of prevention and control measures. Furthermore, the spread of TADs can be contained with continuous research and development for rapid sensitive tests.
