Africa-Press – Lesotho. Ten minutes is all it takes for the first-ever Foot and Mouth rapid test kit to tell you if your animal is infected or not. The innovation is courtesy of Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI).
The test kit is a do-it-yourself (DIY) and requires no technological know-how to use; thus spares the farmer time and expenses of taking samples to distant laboratories for testing, says Dr Boitumelo Mudabuka, a researcher with BITRI.
She was talking in an interview on the side-lines of the ongoing 25th Conference of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Regional Commission for Africa in Gaborone.
Dr Mudabuka said. the advanced kit came at a time when Trans-boundary Animal Diseases (TBDs), in particular FMD, were a major obstacle to the growth of the livestock industry in the country.
The test kit prototype was still waiting accreditation from the WOAH, after which it would be made available for use by the farming community, she said, adding that other countries in Africa were also engaged in the trial stage.
Dr Mudabuka said FMD was a highly contagious disease, which spread with ease and speed, therefore, the technologically advanced and easy to use test kits, releasing the results instantly, would assist in containing the FMD virus before it could spread to a wider area.
“It will significantly reduce the waiting period for results to come back from the laboratories which are far away from the production areas.
It will also reduce costs associated with diagnosis,” she said. She said the innovation was a step in the right direction for the country to develop diagnostic tests for human health.
In relation to the global distribution of FMD serotypes, Dr Mudabuka said the Southern African Territories (SAT) Serotypes were SAT1, SAT2 and SAT3. She said the SAT1 and SAT2 Serotypes were spread across Africa, while the SAT3 was limited to Southern and Eastern Africa.
Dr Mudabuka said Serotype A and Serotype O were found in endemic areas, adding “Serotype O was recently found in Southern Africa”. She said the Asia 1 Serotype was found in the FMD endemic area of Asia, while Serotype C, had not been detected since 2004 and was found in Kenya and Brazil. She said the rapid test kits by BITRI were designed to test SAT2, SAT3 and Serotype O.
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