Development of innovative tools for the detection and control of CAE virus

Caprine arthritisencephalitis (CAE) virus is an important cause of disease in goats and can have a profound impact on dairy goat production. This project will develop new strategies to carry out testing of goats to support disease control programs, herd monitoring and health certification. These will include the application of highly sensitive and specific tests for the detection of antibodies and viral nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) in either blood or milk samples. These tests will be the key tools to be employed to support new test strategies. The application of new nucleic acid detection tests as an alternative to antibody detection will also provide an option to test samples of blood or milk from individual animals (either singly or in pools) or to screen tank milk and allow detection at a very early stage of infection, before an animal has produced antibodies. Period testing of bulk milk samples for antibodies will allow low cost monitoring of the status of a herd and would be an efficient method to survey the status of the Australian dairy goat population.