Poster Presentation 12th Australasian Virology Society Meeting 2024

Next-generation approach to Lagovirus surveillance in Australia (#225)

Nias Y.G. Peng 1 , Maria Jenckel 1 , Nina Huang 1
  1. CSIRO Health & Biosecurity, ACTON, ACT, Australia

Australia has multiple lagoviruses that either causes an acute fulminant viral hepatitis with over 90% case-mortality rate, or mild asymptomatic enteric infections. To better investigate the epidemiological fluctuations of multiple co-circulating lagovirus variants, a new diagnostic pipeline incorporating colorimetric Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP) and direct RNA sequencing using Oxford Nanopore technology was proposed. The intended outcome of this project is to establish a robust diagnostic approach that can be rapidly adapted to distinguish novel or other viral pathogens (Disease X) of biosecurity significance and improve our current surveillance of lagovirus epidemiology in Australia.