Use of piggery effluent for point-of-management diagnostics: A proof of concept

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, detection of the virus in sewage water was used to determine disease spread in the community. Piggery effluent or waste is composed of faeces, urine, oronasal secretions, feed residues and other miscellaneous components which are diluted in water and released into the environment (Rate, 1997). This blended composition of effluent, along with evidence that several pathogenic bacteria have already been isolated from effluent (Chinivasagam et al., 2004) suggest that it could be useful to monitor pathogen prevalence in a herd at a given point in time. This monitoring could help in early detection and improved control of disease outbreaks that could potentially cause significant economic losses and decreased animal welfare. This point-of-management (POM) approach and better control of infectious diseases would also reduce the need for antimicrobials, improving the sustainability of intensive pig production and reducing the risk of antimicrobial resistance genes entering the food chain or the environment. The nucleic acid amplification-based assay known as Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) has been widely adopted for POM diagnostics due to its high sensitivity, accuracy, affordability and quick turnaround time. Therefore, this study was designed to produce a proof-of-concept effluent testing methodology through LAMP-based POM assay, to determine if this tool is useful to monitor pathogens at the shed or herd level. Due to the composition of effluent and the ease of implementation and low cost of LAMP assays, it was hypothesised that LAMP assays could be used to detect a common pathogen in pig effluent for the purpose of POM diagnostics.