Development of a non-infectious encapsidated positive control RNA for molecular assays to detect foot-and-mouth disease virus.

•FMDV is highly infectious and can only be handled in high-containment laboratories.•This study has developed encapsidated control particles containing FMDV RNA.•The construct contains target sequences for molecular assays used to detect FMDV.•These control particles were evaluated using routine tests used for FMD diagnosis.•These particles are non-infectious and temperature-stable.