The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) purchased diagnostic test kits for African swine fever (ASF) and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

The purchases help increase U.S. preparedness to respond to high-consequence foreign animal diseases, APHIS officials said.

The test kids were purchased through funding in the 2018 Farm Bill establishing the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank (NAVVCB). The purchases were made from the manufacturer of the only APHIS Center for Veterinary Biologics-licensed PCR kits for these two diseases.

APHIS must have diagnostic testing capacity to sustain the disease surveillance and monitoring of animals during a high-consequence foreign animal disease outbreak.

Without an adequate testing supply, “disease control and eradication would be challenging,” APHIS said in a news release. Domestic commerce also would be disrupted and international trade would have implications in the event of a foreign animal disease outbreak.

Testing can be done by approved state, industry and university partners.

Over the next 90 days, APHIS is also gathering information from diagnostic manufacturers and developers to determine the potential to include additional test kits and devices for three major foreign animal diseases: FMD, ASF and classical swine fever (CSF).

The federal agency anticipates purchasing diagnostic products from more than one source, and also possibly more than one type of test, to “ensure an adequate supply of these products for a sudden surge of diagnostic samples” that could result from a foreign animal disease outbreak in the U.S.

More information about the NAVVCB and other animal health programs established by the 2018 Farm Bill is available here.