The Animal Health Laboratory said the M Bovis outbreak highlighted the need for laboratory automation. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Biosecurity New Zealand says a new robot for animal disease testing could be the answer to tackle exotic diseases outbreak in New Zealand's animals.
The $580,000 diagnostic robot is the first of its kind in New Zealand and will increase testing accuracy and consistency during future biosecurity responses.
Animal Health Laboratory manager Joseph O'Keefe said if an exotic disease such as foot- and-mouth arrived the country, the robot could test up to 7000 samples per day for antibodies.
"The Mycoplasma bovis outbreak gave us useful insights into how our laboratory could increase its capacity during a response. In particular, it highlighted the need for automation," O'Keefe said in a statement.
The robot was also used to perform antibody tests for surveillance programmes, and for testing groups of animals for import or export purposes, he said.
"Automating this process will speed our delivery of results, making the whole process faster for farmers, better for the wellbeing of our people and for the animals involved too."
The robot did not need frequent attention or intervention which freed up lab staff for other work and the robot could even run tests overnight without staff present, O'Keefe said.
The 750kg robot took a week to set up and the team ran it through stringent testing and calibration to ensure the tests were as accurate as the current manual process.
Now that had been confirmed, the robot has begun day-to-day diagnostic testing, he said.