Molecular and Viral Diagnostics

Export Best Practices

See Factsheet here on export testing guidelines.

Topics of Interest

• Influenza
• Johne's disease
• Mycoplasma hyosynoviae & Mycoplasma hyorhinis .pdf
• Mycoplasma hyopneumonia
• Neonatal calf diarrhea
• Oral fluid testing
• Pinkeye in Cattle .pdf
• Rabies
• Tritrichomonas foetus

Bovine Enteric Panel

• Detects the 5 most important bovine diarrhea diseases simultaneously.
• Results in 12-24 hours, so appropriate treatment can be initiated in the early stages of disease.
• Sensitive enough to detect <10 bacteria or virus particles in a sample.
• Multiplex testing saves time and money.

Calf diarrhea causes major economical losses to the beef and dairy industries.  Surveys indicate that 80% of calf morbidity from birth to 21 days is due to diarrhea.  Since multiple infectious agents can be involved in the calf diarrhea, detection of each of those causative agents by traditional methods is laborious, expensive and time-consuming.  To provide better laboratory service for bovine enteric diseases, ISU VDL has developed a multiplex real-time PCR test which simultaneously identifies the 5 most common bovine diarrhea agents in a single reaction, reducing turnaround time and testing cost for routine diagnosis.  The agents included are:

• Bovine coronavirus
• Bovine rotavirus group A
• Salmonella spp
• E. coli K99
• Cryptosporidium  

Decreased turnaround time will facilitate initiation of the most appropriate treatment or intervention earlier in the disease process.  Decreased cost should encourage more testing.

The test can be performed as ante-mortem or post-mortem testing.  The preferred sample is fresh diarrheic feces from acutely affected animals, preferably from calves that have not received an oral therapy or vaccine.  If the calves have been vaccinated, please indicate when the calves were vaccinated and which live or modified-live virus vaccine was used and the approximate time between vaccination and sampling.  A minimum of 5-10 milliliters of feces or intestinal content is recommended.  The samples should be shipped on ice.

The expected turnaround time is 1-2 days depending upon the time of sample receiving.

See more information on calf diarrhea here.