Assessment of the capability of Shrimp MultiPath White Spot virus tests: A multiplexed screening platform for pathogen diagnostics in prawns

Biosecurity is the top R&D priority for Australia’s Prawn Farming industry. However, pathogen testing is used sparingly in Australian farms due to its cost and the slowness of data turnaround. There are also complex regulatory controls in place on testing of exotic prawn pathogens in Australia which contributes to high costs. Australia’s industry needs access to cost-effective, fast accurate methods, such as Shrimp MultiPath, for detecting multiple prawn pathogens, for clinical disease confirmation, and for surveillance. This project aims to have Shrimp MultiPath recognised by Australia’s regulatory authorities as suitable for Australia’s farming industry to use for clinical disease confirmation, and surveillance in apparently healthy animals. To acquire this outcome, each pathogen test within the Shrimp MultiPath system needs to be comprehensively validated on clinical samples, in addition to the synthetic controls for every pathogen for which it is already validated. This project is a first step to validate the three WSSV tests within Shrimp MultiPath for immediate regulatory approval.