Abstract
Avian influenza virus (AIV) and Newcastle disease virus (NDV) are highly contagious and fatal diseases affecting most species of poultry. The mortality rate of poultry infected by NDV is almost 100% and is over 80% for high pathogenic AIV. High fatality rate may cause significant economic loss of agricultural products. Furthermore, high pathogenic AIV may cause viral transmission from avian to human and genetic mutation to infect from person to person, therefore leading to human pandemics. In this study, a new approach for using magnetic beads-conjugated molecular beacons to rapidly diagnose AIV was demonstrated. The diagnosis process can be automatically performed on a microfluidic system within 30 minutes. The developed system may provide a useful platform for multiple pathogen detection for poultry.