The reference laboratories at The Pirbright Institute offer international diagnostic services.

Our reference laboratories work on behalf of UK national (Defra) and international organisations, including the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 

We provide expertise and capacity to monitor livestock for high consequence viral diseases, supporting global disease control efforts. The reference laboratories also collaborate with other reference laboratories and partners to enhance international disease control.

The Institute offers a free diagnostic service for analysing up to 50 livestock samples per country per year for the viruses listed below (excluding Marek's disease).

This service is provided on behalf of the national competent authority of the submitting country, and the results are shared with WOAH and FAO.

The Institute is also able to conduct pre-movement and export testing for various viruses on behalf of private veterinarians in the UK. 

Please note that testing is subject to laboratory workload and submission priority.

Our diagnostic services are available for the following viruses:

 

Non-vesicular diseases

  • African horse sickness
  • African swine fever
  • Bluetongue
  • Capripox (sheep pox, goat pox and lumpy skin disease)
  • Epizootic haemorrhagic disease
  • Peste des petits ruminants

 

Vesicular diseases

  • Foot-and-mouth disease
  • Seneca Valley virus
  • Swine vesicular disease
  • Vesicular stomatitis
  • Vesicular exanthema of swine

 

Marek's disease

  • Marek's disease 

Diagnostic testing price lists and submission forms

Other diagnostic services

 

The Serum Assay Unit within the World Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-mouth disease (WRLFMD) carries out serological FMDV ELISA validation for both Structural Protein (SP) and Non-Structural Protein (NSP) ELISAs. 

This validation service can be customised to meet the independent needs of each client.

Procedure

We propose a three stage evaluation:

  1. Evaluation with a reference validation panel (35 positive and 35 negative samples) Parida et al. (2007)
  2. Additional validation using sera from experimentally infected animals (250 positive and 250 negative samples)
  3. Wider validation using field sera where the disease history is less certain (500 positive and 500 negatives samples)

Cost

We would expect the cost for validating an ELISA kit to be approximately £8,500 for stage 1, £15,000 for stage 2 and £18,750 for stage 3.

Please contact us to discuss your validation requirements, following which we can issue a quotation.

Contact

For further information, please email Anna Ludi.

The reference laboratories can perform evaluation and validation of real-time (RT-)PCR assays for each of the viruses under their remit.

The evaluation and validation will involve comparison of the proposed assay with the OIE-prescribed and ISO/IEC 17025 accredited assays used within the reference laboratories.

The reference laboratories have access to virus isolates spanning all known lineages, serotypes and genotypes, thus, a proposed assay will undergo a stringent assessment of specificity and sensitivity.

The breadth of the evaluation/validation can be customised to meet the customer requirements in consultation with the reference laboratory.

For:

  • African horse sickness virus
  • African swine fever virus
  • Bluetongue virus
  • Capripox viruses (Goat pox virus, Sheep pox virus and Lumpy skin disease virus)
  • Epizootic haemorrhagic disease virus
  • Peste des petits ruminants virus

Email the Non-Vesicular Disease Reference Laboratory.

For:

  • Foot-and-mouth disease virus
  • Swine vesicular disease virus
  • Vesicular stomatitis virus
  • Vesicular exanthema of swine virus

Email the Vesicular Disease Reference Laboratories.

Drugs, vaccines and other material can be screened for the absence of certain livestock viruses.

Price on application, email the laboratory for information.