Optimal specimen collection and transport methods for the detection of avian influenza virus and Newcastle disease virus

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Abstract
Active and passive surveillance for avian influenza virus (AIV) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is widespread in commercial poultry worldwide, therefore optimization of sample collection and transport would be valuable to achieve the best sensitivity and specificity possible, and to develop the most accurate and efficient testing programs. A H7N2 low pathogenicity (LP) AIV strain was selected and used as an indicator virus because it is present in lower concentrations in swabbings and thus requires greater sensitivity for detection compared to highly pathogenic (HP) AIV. For similar reasons a mesogenic strain of NDV was selected. Using oro-pharyngeal and cloacal swabs collected from chickens experimentally exposed to the viruses we evaluated the effects of numerous aspects of sample collection and transport: 1) swab construction material (flocked nylon, non-flocked Dacron, or urethane foam), 2) transport media (brain heart infusion broth [BHI] or phosphate buffered saline [PBS]), 3) media volume (2 ml or 3.5 ml), 4) transporting the swab wet in the vial or removing the swab prior to transport, or transporting the swab dry with no media, and 5) single swabs versus pooling 5 or 11 swabs per vial.

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