Written approval for undertaking PPR vaccination, serum sample collection and shipping of samples to PANVAC was granted by respective Ministries responsible for livestock in different regions of Somalia in 2012.
RRN coordinated the coding and shipping of samples and coded the data.
Additionally, saliva is extremely stable, and more easily preserved than serum samples, thereby facilitating collection and shipping of samples from different sites.
Furthermore, significant time delays are associated with these approaches due to shipping of samples to centralized laboratories, making them less desirable or even unsuitable.
However, given the remote locations in which outbreaks usually occur, this either involves time-consuming shipping of samples to more centrally located reference laboratories, or dispatching of mobile laboratories directly into the outbreak area [ 5].
Although the real-time RT-PCR format provides considerably decreased turnaround times in molecular diagnostics, delays associated with shipping of samples and laboratory-based testing are a concern when many patients have to be seen in short time.
