Foot and mouth disease: WOAH Reference Laboratory and FAO Reference Centre at the NCFAD

The National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD) in Winnipeg was designated as a World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Reference Laboratory for foot and mouth disease (FMD) virus in 2019.

The NCFAD was also designated as a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Reference Centre for FMD and other vesicular diseases in 2015.

Mandate

To advance science and research on the diagnosis, surveillance and control of FMD virus, and to provide scientific advice, assistance and technical training to WOAH and FAO member countries.

Latest updates

• The latest WOAH Annual Reports are available online (once on the page, scroll to "Foot and mouth disease")
• Foot-and-mouth disease [fao.org]

Activities and services

• Diagnostic testing for FMD
• Developing new diagnostic methods
• Vaccine evaluation
• Providing expert advice and technical training to WOAH and FAO member countries on FMD

Current research interests

• Improving FMD serotype specific ELISAs using monoclonal antibodies
• Use of nanopore sequencing for rapid identification of FMD virus serotypes
• Developing an EITB diagnostic test for confirming 3ABC ELISA positive samples
• Evaluating alternative routes for FMD vaccine administration in pigs
• Validating new, sensitive and user-friendly methods for determining antigen content in FMD vaccines
• FMD vaccine potency testing in pigs

More information

• Foot and mouth disease [woah.org]
• CFIA reference laboratories and collaborating centres
• Reference Laboratories [woah.org]
• FAO reference centres [fao.org]
• Twinning is winning: collaborating for the global management of animal diseases

Selected publications

• Investigation into the protective ability of monovalent and bivalent a Malaysia 97 and A22 Iraq 64 vaccine strains against infection with an A/asia/SEA-97 variant in pigs
• Development of reverse-transcriptase, real-time PCR assays to distinguish the Southern African Territories (SAT) serotypes 1 and 3 and topotype VII of SAT2 of foot-and-mouth disease virus
• Identification of diffusion routes of O/EA-3 topotype of foot-and-mouth disease virus in Africa and Western Asia between 1974 and 2019 – a phylogeographic analysis
• Combining a universal capture ligand and pan-serotype monoclonal antibody to develop a pan-serotype lateral flow strip test for foot-and-mouth disease virus detection
• Molecular characterization of southern African territories 2 (sat2) serotype of foot-and-mouth disease virus from Nigeria in 2017 to 2018
• Detection of foot-and-mouth disease virus in swine meat juice