Experiment 3: Recovery of live virus from beach sand on macrophages.
Experiment 2 was repeated with beach sand and 2 mL of ASFV-positive blood with a titer of 7.25 log10HAD50/mL at room temperature, due to inconclusive virus isolation results (data not shown). A larger volume of blood was used to increase the chances for virus detection in this matrix that previously gave mixed results. In the repeated experiment, blood-only and sterile sand were included as controls. Every experimental condition was completed with 3 replicates.