Abstract
The genetic diversity of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) poses a challenge to the successful control of the disease, and it is important to identify the emergence of different strains in endemic settings. The objective of this study was to evaluate the sampling of clinically healthy livestock at slaughterhouses as a strategy for genomic FMDV surveillance. Serum samples (n = 11,875) and oropharyngeal fluid (OPF) samples (n = 5045) were collected from clinically healthy cattle and buffalo on farms in eight provinces in southern and northern Vietnam (2015–2019) to characterize viral diversity. Outbreak sequences were collected between 2009 and 2019. In two slaughterhouses in southern Vietnam, 1200 serum and OPF samples were collected from clinically healthy cattle and buffalo (2017 to 2019) as a pilot study on the use of slaughterhouses as sentinel points in surveillance. FMDV VP1 sequences were analyzed using discriminant principal component analysis and time-scaled phylodynamic trees. Six of seven serotype-O and -A clusters circulating in southern Vietnam between 2017–2019 were detected at least once in slaughterhouses, sometimes pre-dating outbreak sequences associated with the same cluster by 4–6 months. Routine sampling at slaughterhouses may provide a timely and efficient strategy for genomic surveillance to identify circulating and emerging FMDV strains.
Highlights
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a contagious disease affecting cloven-hoofed mammals that causes recurrent outbreaks, subclinical infection, and substantial economic losses in affected regions [1]
42.4% (95%CI: 32.2–52.1%) of serum samples were sero-reactive against Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) nonstructural proteins, and 8.8% (95%CI: 3.4–15.1%) of oropharyngeal fluid (OPF) were rRT-PCR-positive; 1200 serum samples and 1200 OPF samples were collected from slaughterhouses, and 64 sequences were obtained (Table 2)
We identified six distinct serotype-O and four serotype-A genetic clusters through sequencing FMDVs recovered from serial cross-sectional sampling at selected slaughterhouses in southern Vietnam, active surveillance at farms, and passive surveillance based on outbreak reporting throughout the country
Summary
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a contagious disease affecting cloven-hoofed mammals that causes recurrent outbreaks, subclinical infection, and substantial economic losses in affected regions [1]. Slaughterhouses are concentration points where animals from many farms aggregate, and can potentially serve as a convenient, quasi-representative sample of animals from the surrounding host population [9,10,11]. This strategy is employed in veterinary public health to detect diseases or zoonoses of public health concern, such as Fasciola or bovine tuberculosis [9,10,12]. Routine slaughterhouse surveillance and laboratory testing to detect emerging diseases is conducted in the European Union (EFSA and ECDC) [16] and the USA (USDA and APHI) [13], though this is not always possible in under-resourced settings with high disease prevalence
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