Animal Viral Diseases Diagnosis In Qatar: Current Situation and Future Prospects

Identification and control of viruses that causes diseases in human, domestic and wild animals represent continuous challenges to medical and veterinary sciences. Many diagnostic techniques have for a long time been used to identify individual infectious viral agents by their clinical signs , symptoms and histopathological changes produced in the susceptible host. But it is not always possible to identify or differentiate the disease on the basis of its signs symptoms and pathology, it thus requires use of other specific diagnostic procedures to clearly identify and confirm the pathogens These procedures involve both conventional as well as state of the art techniques. Several conventional techniques such as isolation in cell culture, serology for both antibody and antigen detection are traditionally used to identify viral pathogens. However, the rapid molecular detection techniques of infectious agents in animals as well as in environment have nowadays become an essential part of any modern diagnostic laboratory. Molecular diagnostic technologies are more advantageous as they offer more sensitive, less time consuming, with high throughput results and provide accurate diagnosis and provide thorough understanding of and discrimination of present and emerging diseases. In addition, these new tools can detect the presence of pathogen before the onset of clinical disease. Here we discuss some aspects of the current and contemplated diagnostic tools and their potential applications for diagnosis of viral diseases of domestic and wild animals in Qatar.