Highly sensitive PCR assay for routine diagnosis of African swine fever virus in clinical samples.

This work provides a novel, highly sensitive, hot start PCR method for rapid and specific detection of African swine fever virus (ASFV) that can be used as a routine diagnostic test for ASFV in surveillance, control, and eradication programs. A confirmatory test of the specificity of this method based on restriction endonuclease analysis was also developed.