Carrie Batten

The paper presents a high-quality telomere-to-telomere assembly of the LSDV genome using long-read sequencing, resolving structural ambiguities and improving genomic analysis.

The paper modifies an existing rRT-PCR method to detect a new AHSV variant and validates its performance against existing methods.

This study quantifies LSDV transmission by three insect vectors, finding Stomoxys calcitrans as the most efficient with R0 of 5.8, while Culicoides nubeculosus did not transmit the virus.

The paper reports the re-emergence of BTV-4 in North Macedonia in 2020, showing genetic similarity to strains from Greece and Hungary.