Laboratory capacity for diagnosis of foot-and-mouth disease in Eastern Africa: implications for the progressive control pathway

BMC Veterinary Research

Research Article

Hans Redlef Siegsmund¹  Vincent B Muwanika²  Sabenzia Nabalayo Wekesa³  Moses Tefula Dhikusooka⁴  Chrisostom Ayebazibwe⁴  Alice Namatovu⁵  Kirsten Tjørnehøj⁶ 

[1] Department of Biology, Ole Maaløes Vej 5, DK-2200, Copenhagen N, Denmark;Department of Environmental Management, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062/7298, Kampala, Uganda;Department of Environmental Management, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062/7298, Kampala, Uganda;Foot-and-Mouth Disease Laboratory, Ministry of Livestock Development, P.O. Box 18021, Embakasi, Nairobi, Kenya;National Animal Disease Diagnostics and Epidemiology Centre, Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries, P. O. Box 513, Entebbe, Uganda;National Animal Disease Diagnostics and Epidemiology Centre, Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries, P. O. Box 513, Entebbe, Uganda;Department of Biotechnical and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity, Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda;National Veterinary Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Lindholm, 4771, Kalvehave, DK, Denmark;

关键词: Quality Management System;    Veterinary Research Institute;    Laboratory Capacity;    Antigen ELISA;    FMDV Serotypes;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1746-6148-9-19

 received in 2012-09-14, accepted in 2013-01-16,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAccurate diagnosis is pertinent to any disease control programme. If Eastern Africa is to work towards control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) using the Progressive Control Pathway for FMD (PCP-FMD) as a tool, then the capacity of national reference laboratories (NRLs) mandated to diagnose FMD should match this task. This study assessed the laboratory capacity of 14 NRLs of the Eastern Africa Region Laboratory Network member countries using a semi-structured questionnaire and retrospective data from the World Reference Laboratory for FMD annual reports and Genbank® through National Centre for Biotechnology Information for the period 2006–2010.ResultsThe questionnaire response rate was 13/14 (93%). Twelve out of the 13 countries/regions had experienced at least one outbreak in the relevant five year period. Only two countries (Ethiopia and Kenya) had laboratories at biosecurity level 3 and only three (Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan) had identified FMD virus serotypes for all reported outbreaks. Based on their own country/region assessment, 12/13 of these countries /regions were below stage 3 of the PCP-FMD. Quarantine (77%) and vaccination (54%) were the major FMD control strategies employed. The majority (12/13) of the NRLs used serological techniques to diagnose FMD, seven used antigen ELISA and three of these (25%) also used molecular techniques which were the tests most frequently requested from collaborating laboratories by the majority (69%) of the NRLs. Only 4/13 (31%) participated in proficiency testing for FMD. Four (31%) laboratories had no quality management systems (QMS) in place and where QMS existed it was still deficient, thus, none of the laboratories had achieved accreditation for FMD diagnosis.ConclusionsThis study indicates that FMD diagnostic capacity in Eastern Africa is still inadequate and largely depends on antigen and antibody ELISAs techniques undertaken by the NRLs. Hence, for the region to progress on the PCP-FMD, there is need to: implement regional control measures, improve the serological diagnostic test performance and laboratory capacity of the NRLs (including training of personnel as well as upgrading of equipment and methods, especially strengthening the molecular diagnostic capacity), and to establish a regional reference laboratory to enforce QMS and characterization of FMD virus containing samples.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Namatovu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.