I am trying to find a detection method of anguillid herpesvirus 1 that does not need to sacrifice animals in order to assess the health status of the endangered wild populations of European eel.

I saw that in many papers that this virus was detected in organs lysates or infected EK-1 cells. Do anybody tried to isolate the virus from infected eel blood? As blood can be sampled from fish without need to sacrifice them, it would be a great achievement if we can detect the virus using the whole blood or gill swabs?

I know that in common carp, Bergmann and Kempter (2011) used DNA extraction from gill swabs followed by qPCR to monitor infected carps, but I was wondering if you somebody tested this non-lethal sampling method or tested the detection in blood samples as an alternative in eels that are contaminated but do not show any symptoms. Moreover, Kim et al (2012) detected successively the anguillid herpesvirus 1 in the pectoral fins and I was wondering if this method can be conducted to early detection in healthy carrier.

Second, I would like to test the detection of this virus but I am lacking positive control which mean infected fish. Do anybody can provide me informations on where can I find infected fish or maybe if it is possible provide me with blood, gill swabs, pectoral fins and kidney of infected fish. I am in Belgium and looking further for all your suggestions.

Thank you in advance