The suitability of this assay to detect CaPV DNA in clinical samples was evaluated using archived field and experimental samples held at the OIE Reference Laboratory for LSDV and GPV/SPV (The Pirbright Institute, UK) and the National Veterinary Reference Laboratory in Tanzania (Tanzania Veterinary Laboratories Agency‐TVLA). Fourteen clinical samples (Table 1), comprising nine from two experimentally infected animals where cattle had been infected with LSDV Neethling strain (VN83 and VN84), and five from field samples submitted to The Pirbright Institute were used. Five additional skin scrapings from the TVLA archive were analysed within East African laboratory settings. For each sample, one duplicate was extracted and assayed using the established reference test (Bowden et al., 2008) whilst for the second duplicate the extraction and real‐time PCR was performed on the Enigma FL. There was complete concordance between positive results (n = 19) and negative results (n = 3) generated on the Enigma FL and the standard laboratory pipelines (Table 1). Opportunistic testing of samples collected from a Holstein–Friesian cross‐dairy cow on a small holder farm in Morogoro, Tanzania, displaying clinical signs of LSD (Fig. 2) was also undertaken. Two samples comprising EDTA blood and skin scrapings were tested; skin scrapings were processed using a field‐based tissue processing kit (Svanodip® Ag extraction kit; prior to being added into the Engima FL sample loading chamber, whilst EDTA blood was added directly to the sample chamber). Both specimens were positive for CaPV DNA using the Enigma FL. It should be noted that the current diagnostic reference test (Bowden et al., 2008) utilizes a conservative cut‐off CT value of <37 to define a positive result. However, for this study, all CT values are reported because amplification of CaPV in animals with late infection may generate weak values that would be missed with a cut‐off of 37. Suitable negative controls were also included in the data set to confirm the absences of any false amplification.