2.2 | FMDV detection and serotyping
All samples were screened for the presence of FMDV antigen either using the indirect sandwich ELISA kit (WRLFMD; Roeder and Le Blanc Smith, 1987) or using the monoclonal antibody based antigen detection and serotyping ELISA kit (IZSLER Biotech, Brescia, Italy; Grazioli et al., 2012). A subset of these FMDV positive samples (n=53) were submitted to the WRLFMD (at the Pirbright Institute, Surrey, UK) where they were also tested by real time RT-PCR (Callahan et al., 2002; Shaw et al., 2007) and virus isolation using primary bovine thyroid and IB-RS-2 cells as previously described (Snowdon, 1966; de Castro, 1964). Samples in which FMDV was identified (n=91) are listed in Table 1 together with associated metadata.