Advanced Sensors for Animal Disease Diagnosis

Infectious disease-causing agents of animals pose global public health risks due to the emergence of sporadic zoonotic infections and pandemic strains. Animals are the major source of approximately 70% of all human infections. The development of rapid, sensitive, selective and on-site assays for pathogen detection has attracted special research orientation worldwide. Sensors are an attractive alternative to conventional microbiological and molecular methods. This chapter reviews the various sensors explored to date for species-wise (bovine, caprine, ovine, equine, swine, canine, avian and aquatic animals) animal pathogen diagnostics. The major focus has been given to immunosensors, magnetoelastic platforms, surface plasmon resonance, electrochemical and optical sensors, POC diagnostics, ELISA, NA-NOSE, genosensors, quartz crystal microbalance, SWINOSTICS, FRET and immunochromatography strips due to their high sensitivity, ease of readability, portability and diverse functionality. The use of bacteriophages in sensors has been highlighted for the detection of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens. All these advances are ultimately helping the livestock, poultry and fish industries in timely detection of diseases so that action can be taken before the situation gets worse. Many such sensors, like wearable biosensors, ingestible biosensors, in-situ disease detection devices, online monitoring systems and many other smart nanotechnologies, are already on the market and many more are in the pipeline.