In recent years, novel Bluetongue virus (BTV) serotypes have been isolated and/or sequenced by researchers within the field. During Bluetongue surveillance activities, we identified a putative novel BTV serotype in healthy goats from Sardinia, Italy. RNAs purified from blood and serum samples were positive for BTV by a generic real time RT-PCR and c-ELISA, respectively, whereas genotyping and serotyping were unsuccessful. By NGS, the whole genome sequence was obtained from two blood samples (BTV-X ITL2015 strains 34200 and 33531). Overall, Seg 2 of BTV-X ITL2015 shows the highest identity (75.3-75.5% nt/77.4-78.1% aa) with recently isolated BTV-27s from Corsica and with the last discovered BTV XJ1407 from China (75.9% nt /78.2% aa), whereas it is less related with BTV-25 from Switzerland (73.0% nt/75.0% aa) and BTV-26 from Kuwait (62.0% nt/60.5% aa). A specific RT-qPCR targeting Seg 2 of BTV-X ITL2015 was assessed in this study. Considering the Seg 2/VP2 identity of BTV-X ITL2015 with BTV-25, 26, 27s and BTV XJ1407 and that serum of BTV-X ITL2015 infected goats failed to neutralize all tested extant serotypes, we propose the existence of a novel BTV serotype circulating in goats in Sardinia. Isolation was so far unsuccessful thus hampering proper antigenic characterization.

Following the announcement on December 2020 about the emergence of a new variant (VOC 202012/01, B.1.1.7 lineage) in the United Kingdom a targeted surveillance was put in place in Abruzzo region (Italy), which allowed to detect 313 persons affected by lineage B.1.1.7, up to the 20th of February 2021. We investigated the results of RT-PCR on nasopharyngeal swabs tested from December 2020 to February 2021, to verify any difference on the viral load and persistence between people infected by lineage B.1.1.7 and others. Statistically significant lower values of CT associated with the detection of the N protein encoding gene (CT N) were observed in persons with lineage B.1.1.7 infection (median CT N = 15.8) in comparison to those infected by other lineages (median CT N = 16.9). A significant longer duration of the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in nasopharyngeal swabs was observed in persons with lineage B.1.1.7 infection (16 days) in comparison to those infected by other lineages (14 days).

Fast real-time PCR TaqMan assays were developed and validated for species identification in dairy products. Based on the amplification of 12S rRNA and cytB partial genes of mitochondrial DNA, the methods were demonstrated to be sensitive, fast, and species-specific for Bos taurus, Ovis aries, Bubalus bubalis, and Capra hircus. The limit of detection calculated was lower than 1%, and the efficiency was reported to be higher than 96% in every assay. An internal amplification control was used to detect possible false negatives. The method was validated by means of laboratory-prepared samples mixing different species. Moreover, 18 commercial dairy samples were analyzed by both real-time PCR and isoelectric focusing, the official European Union reference method. The 4 TaqMan assays were confirmed to be a useful tool for milk and dairy product authentication.