FMDV is a notifiable disease in the UK.

The best materials for diagnosis are vesicle fluid and 1 square inch of epithelium preferably from unruptured lesions. Scrapings from ruptured vesicles are also useful. Sedation with Rompun may be necessary. Virus survives best at pH of 7.2-7.8 and so 50% glycerol with 50% PBS pH7.6 is the traditional transport medium.

At the laboratory attempts are made to detect viral antigens within a few hours by ELISA using mAb to VP1 or antiserum from guinea-pigs. The vesicle fluid antigen can be sometimes be diluted 10,000-fold for ELISA.

ELISA'S ARE SEROTYPE SPECIFIC, IE ALL 7 SEROTYPES (and SVD in pigs) MUST BE TESTED FOR with 8 different antisera.

In addition to tests for antigen vesicle fluid is inoculated into kidney cell cultures and suckling mice which detects less virus.

For import/export of healthy animals : serology to negate past exposure. Serology is widely used to detect subclinical carrier sheep e.g. those slaughtered on contiguous premises and in infected areas in the present UK outbreak 10-60 are sampled depending on the size of the holding. Samples should be from random sheep to avoid sampling only the healthiest and avoiding the sick sheep which lag behind the rest of the flock.