AVA Conference Adelaide 2016

This talk will give an overview over the research into BVD in our research group over the last few years. At the University of Adelaide’s Roseworthy situated School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences we have worked on Bovine Viral Diarrhoea BVD) for the past years, aiming to improve diagnostic testing protocols, including an attempt to identify the “Trojan” cow carrying a persistently infected (PI) calf in utero. We have improved on the application of diagnostic tests, validated commercially available ELISAs locally and described their performance characteristics on serum and milk, ear notches and pools of samples. We also looked at the feasibility of control efforts in this country and compared their possibility to those successfully carried out in other countries. In addition, we have explored and excluded the possibility of possible additional host reservoirs for the virus in other ruminant hosts, such as sheep, alpaca and buffalo (in the NT)