Health Monitoring Services
The disease status of laboratory animals has improved significantly
over the last 25 years. This has resulted in the increased
availability of animals free from the major pathogens, that are
robust under experimental procedures and that do not represent a
hazard to other animals in the facility. At the same time, the
increase in the use of genetically modified animals and their
movement from diverse sources throughout the world has been
presented a serious threat to animal health and has resulted in the
breakdown of some animal facilities with serious infections.
The maintenance of health status of the animals within the
facility, whilst fulfilling a research requirement for specialised
laboratory animals, presents a difficult challenge. Therefore a
programme of health monitoring is essential to assure managers and
researchers that the standard of animal health within the facility
has been maintained and that experiments will not be compromised by
unexpected infections.
If you want to read more about the health monitoring services we
offer, please download the PDF
Health Monitoring Services
Health Monitoring Results - Interpretation
Over recent years, the development of health (or
microbiological) monitoring programmes for laboratory animal
colonies has been a significant feature of the modern animal
facility.
The responsibility for establishing them falls to facility
managers and veterinarians. However, it is one thing to establish
the programme, but quite another to handle the results and the
questions that they may raise. Despite the attempts at
standardising health monitoring reports, for example by FELASA, the
animal facility receiving animals for research may be faced with a
variety of formats and data which need to be interpreted. In
addition, the facility may submit their own animals for testing,
and it is important to be able to know what is the scope of the
health monitoring profile and what information does the report
really contain.
Please download the PDF
Interpretation of Health Monitoring Reports if you want to
read more.
Understanding Health Monitoring
The ultimate goal of a health monitoring programme is to enable
valid experimental data to be obtained from laboratory animals
without being compromised by interfering micro-organisms. All goals
sound simple, but our responses to health monitoring exemplify how
easily a simple concept can become confused.
The full text of this publication in "Lab Animal Europe" can be
downloaded as a PDF
Understanding of Health Monitoring