SBIR-STTR Award

African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and lethal viral disease of domestic and wild pigs which is responsible for serious economic and production losses. It is caused by the ASF virus a large DNA virus of the Asfarviridae family which also infects ticks of the genus Ornithodoros. The ability of the virus to infect and be transmitted by long-lived and difficult to control ticks has contributed to the problem of control and eradication. Another drawback is that the virus is relatively environmentally stable and can survive processes that are normally lethal to viruses. Acute forms of ASF are characterized by high fever depression anorexia and loss of appetite 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 moderately or low virulent viruses resulting in lower mortality rates but can still range from 30-70%. With an estimated 6 million feral pigs and potentially susceptible tick vectors in the U.S. ASFV could be easily established and spread rapidly here (Brown and Bevins 2018). One estimate is that the introduction 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 commercially available will take a long time. Prevention and early detection play a key role in the control strategy for ASF and enhancing early detection would also improve the efficacy of disease control measures. VecTOR Test Systems Inc. will work on developing rapid immuno-chromatographic assays for detection of ASF-specific IgG and IgM in infected animals. We will initiate this development with reagents developed at the Biosecurity Research Institute (BRI) at Kansas State University the first and only nonfederal facility in the U.S. that has been approved to work with ASFV. In Phase I feasibility of the concept will be confirmed by developing prototype ASFV-antibody assays that utilizes the most promising reagents available currently. In addition development of the ASFV antigen detection assay will be initiated during Phase I. The technology is based on the simple and reliable immuno-chromatographic detection method by which sensitive test-strip based assays provide results in less than 30 minutes. The proposed assays will be easy to perform and results easy to interpret with minimal training. The assay will be made available in a kit with all the components required to perform the assay. The assay kit will be stable at ambient storage conditions for 2 years.