# Advances and emerging technologies in the diagnosis of viral infections in pigs: Progress, challenges, and One Health perspectives

## TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in diagnosing viral infections in pigs, emphasizing new technologies and their role in improving disease control and food security.

## Contribution

The paper highlights emerging diagnostic technologies and their integration with digital tools for improved swine viral disease management.

## Key findings

- PCR and its advanced forms remain gold standards for diagnosing porcine viruses.
- CRISPR-based assays and biosensors are bridging lab precision with field application.
- AI and GIS integration enhances outbreak prediction and real-time data sharing.

## Abstract

Viral infections continue to pose major challenges to pig health, farm productivity, and global food security. Early and accurate diagnosis is the cornerstone of disease prevention, surveillance, and control in swine populations. In recent years, remarkable progress has been achieved in molecular, serological, and digital diagnostic technologies, enabling more rapid, sensitive, and field-adaptable detection of important porcine viruses such as African swine fever virus, porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, and classical swine fever virus. This review summarizes current and emerging diagnostic approaches, highlighting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and its advanced forms, quantitative PCR and digital PCR, as the gold standards for laboratory confirmation. The advent of next-generation sequencing and metagenomics has revolutionized pathogen discovery and genomic surveillance, providing comprehensive insights into viral evolution and transboundary transmission. Isothermal amplification techniques such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification and recombinase polymerase amplification have shown strong potential for on-farm diagnosis due to their simplicity, rapidity, and minimal equipment requirements. Innovations such as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated-based assays, biosensors, lab-on-a-chip platforms, and point-of-care testing devices are bridging the gap between laboratory precision and field application, allowing rapid decision-making during outbreaks. The integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and geographic information systems has further enhanced diagnostic interpretation, real-time data sharing, and early outbreak prediction under the One Health framework. Despite these advances, challenges remain in ensuring assay standardization, affordability, and equitable access in resource-limited regions. Continued international collaboration, data sharing, and policy harmonization under the guidance of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, and the World Health Organization are essential for the global control of swine viral diseases. Ultimately, combining molecular innovation with digital adaptability offers the most promising path toward resilient, cost-effective, and sustainable diagnostic systems for safeguarding animal and public health.