Full Spectrum health monitoring

The challenge of maintaining colony health

The maintenance of healthy animal populations is vital to research integrity. Today’s facility managers have to manage an increasingly complex research environment, balancing these pressures with the significant consequences of an outbreak mid-way through a research project. To achieve this, they must:

Understand the inherent risks in facility infrastructure and procedures
Identify gaps and eliminate unnecessary pathogen targets in health panels
了解不同测试技术的好处和局限性
Collate results from different sources into actionable health overviews
Keep track of current FELASA standards and interpret guidelines
解释测试结果并准备采取适当的纠正措施

Trusted, tailor-made testing programs

全谱健康监测支持欧盟设施管理人员维护健康的研究殖民地。在其核心，能够提交各种NSP（非牺牲面板）样本以及动物，以测试对目标病原体的最佳技术进行测试。

进行了几项研究以验证Envigo内部开发的NSP测试的表现。raybetAPP这些研究和结果的目的总结在我们白皮书中'Comparing Non-sacrificial Panel (NSP) and Traditional Animal Health Monitoring'.

这种功能基于访问我们经验丰富的员工，他们能够帮助识别漏洞和建立生物安全流程，满足您的研究需求的设计测试配置文件，提供洞察力的测试报告，并在手头响应生物安全问题他们发生。

Full Spectrum health monitoring combines a complete suite of services to assess, design, test, report, interpret and support facility managers in the maintenance of healthy animal populations critical to research integrity.

生物安全评估

专家在现场评估您的设施，流程和实践，以便为实现所需微生物标准所需的适当健康监测制度的设计。Learn more

Test profile design

Tailored test profile designs that are appropriate to your research needs, eliminating unnecessary pathogen targets to deliver a clear health picture using NSP techniques wherever possible.Learn more

100% health validated testing

Comprehensive health monitoring test programs via serology, bacteriology, parasitology and pathology, delivering 100% health validated testing from a wide range of accepted samples.Learn more

Insightful reports

Pre-agreed schedule of insightful reports that include both the data and summarized interpretation of the results to deliver a complete health picture.Learn more

Expert interpretation

如果发生生物安全问题，该计划提供对Envigo专家的访问，以帮助解释积极成果，并就适当的纠正措施提供建议。raybetAPPLearn more

Support services

Comprehensive support services to ensure continuity and quickly recover from outbreaks, should they occur. Services include cryopreservation, rederivation, revitalization, speed congenics and genotyping.Learn more

What you can expect

Envigo offers its clients numerous possibilities in setting up your health surveillance programs including testing profiles, frequencies of testing, number of animals to be monitored etc., all based on the FELASA 2014 recommendations. Our ISO 9001:2015 certified diagnostic laboratories are located in the UK, Italy and Singapore and include highly qualified microbiologists, (molecular) biologists and veterinarians.

The routine testing of laboratory animals includes the use of serology, bacteriology, molecular biology (PCR) and parasitology which is usually undertaken on live animals, which can be picked up from your facility by dedicated Envigo trucks. For shipping live animals to our labs, Envigo offers special filtered boxes including gel, so animals arrive in good condition at our lab. Alternatively samples can be sent by overnight courier; this includes the use of dry blood spot cards for serology. Please download ourdry blood spot leaflet有关详细信息。

There are some instances when the use of sentinel animals is recommended. Sentinel animals are those that are introduced to the main population specifically for the purpose of health monitoring, when it is difficult or inappropriate to sample animals from the main population. One example of such a case is when using racks of individually ventilated cages (IVC’s), where it may not be practicable to screen animals in every cage on the rack.

It is advised that sentinels are sufficiently exposed to the animal colonies (at least 6 weeks). Sentinel animals should be selected for immune responsiveness, susceptibility to pathogens of interest (and therefore negative for these organisms!), and ease of identification. Isolator bred and maintained sentinels from Envigo are at minimum free of opportunistic bacteria (often referred as FELASA Plus or SOPF quality). Full monitoring reports are normally provided within 10 working days from receipt of animals. If necessary, serology data can already be provided within 48 hours after receipt of the animals or samples. The reports can provide historical data for individual units and areas, if required. Keep in mind that as a customer you pay for the result — not the retesting!

健康监测interpretation

近年来,健康的发展或心肌梗死crobiological — monitoring programs for laboratory animal colonies has been a significant feature of the modern animal facility. This responsibility for monitoring animal health has fallen upon the shoulders of your facility managers and veterinarians. As you know, it is one thing to establish the program, but quite another to handle the results and the questions that arise from them. Despite the attempts at standardizing health monitoring reports, for example by FELASA, animal facilities receiving animals for research are still faced with a variety of formats and data that need to be interpreted. Some of these questions that could arise:

Why do only some of the animals submitted test positive on occasion for certain agents, and not all animals?
Why do test results for different submissions from the same area vary from time to time?
How reliable are the test results? What should be done if an unexpected positive result is obtained?
Do test results vary between different test methods and between different laboratories? If so, why?

In case colonies are confirmed to be positive for pathogenic organisms, Envigo can assist in cleaning up the colonies through rederivation (embryo transfer and/or caesarean section). View our contract breeding services for additional information.

In case of positive endoparasite findings (such as pinworm infections) we can offer you treatment schedules, such as use of Fenbendazol in diet.

Knowing more about animal health monitoring

Your ultimate goal is to ensure that valid experimental data can be obtained from laboratory animals that have not been compromised by interfering microorganisms. To meet the level of quality and consistency your research program requires, an animal health monitoring program is essential to your success.

The goal of a pathogen-free laboratory environment is desirable, but it can be difficult to achieve.