White Spot Disease (WSD) caused by White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) is a highly contagious disease of decapod crustaceans and is one of the most pathogenic and devastating viruses to the global prawn industry. Australia was considered free of WSD until December 2016 when the disease was officially diagnosed on prawn farms in the Logan River in South East Queensland. Following the outbreak, the need for improved WSSV diagnosis, with a focus on providing capability for rapid on-farm pathogen detection was identified.

This investment will assess the analytical and diagnostic performance characteristics of three commercially available immunochromatographic and commercially available real-time PCR based testing platforms for the detection of WSSV in clinically-affected prawns. The performance of each of the five test kits will be compared to validated laboratory-based NATA accredited WSSV real-time qPCR assays.