The ability to accurately monitor and diagnose presence of CoVs infection will result in increased knowledge of the contribution of CoVs in chronic endemic disease in pigs and their overall economic importance. This capability will also reduce the use of antibiotics as a presumptive treatment in cases of diarrhoea and respiratory illness caused by undiagnosed CoV disease.
In future, the proposed bio-surveillance CoV toolkit will allow for early responses to new CoV outbreaks in pig herds, giving more time to scale up vaccination and/or control the spread of infections.
Routine monitoring using the multiplex assays by larger laboratories, perhaps by APHA and SAC or as part of the AHDB Pig Health Scheme, could provide reliable surveillance for notifiable or emerging CoVs not thought to currently be present in the UK, such as PDCoV and SADS CoV. In addition, CoV sequences obtained during field assessments could also be compared with current vaccines available outside the UK and, if necessary, inform genomic changes to optimise future vaccines.