Diagnostic Laboratory Services- Equine Virology
The Equine Virology Unit offers a comprehensive testing service including the serological diagnosis of all important equine viral infections encountered in the UK. We are an OIE International Reference Laboratory for Equine Influenza and Equine Herpesvirus.
We offer serological tests for antibodies to equine influenza, equine adenovirus and equine rhinovirus types 1 & 2, which all cause respiratory infections of the horse, equine herpesvirus types 1&4, which can cause respiratory and neurological diseases as well as abortion and neonatal foal death, and equine arteritis virus, which is an important causative agent of abortion.
We can also make a diagnosis using a range of specific virus isolation and detection methods.
Serological diagnosis of viral infection relies on detecting virus specific antibodies present in equine serum samples. In most cases, submission of paired serum samples is recommended. An acute serum sample, taken during
the early stages of disease, is tested in parallel with a convalescent serum sample taken 10 to 14 days later. A rise in the amount of specific antibody detected in the convalescent sample relative to the acute sample may be suggestive of infection, in the absence of recent vaccination. Advice on interpretation of results is available from the epidemiology/virology unit through Customer Services
Although serological diagnosis is a very useful tool the results can be difficult to interpret especially if the animal has been vaccinated against the disease in question. Also the results can be somewhat retrospective. To address this we now offer a number of rapid methods to detect virus directly from clinical samples. We have used molecular biological techniques to develop polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to detect the nucleic acids of target viruses in clinical samples. The PCR test works by amplifying very small amounts of virus specific nucleic acid that may be present in a sample and then detecting this specific nucleic acid. The test is both highly sensitive and specific and is diagnostic of recent infection by the target virus. We are routinely using PCR based tests to detect equine herpesvirus types 1&4 nucleic acid in tissue samples from cases of abortion or neonatal foal death and from cases of fatal neurological disease. We also use a PCR test to detect equine arteritis virus specific nucleic acids in the semen of stallions, a result that would indicate that the horse is a current equine arteritis virus shedder.
We now routinely use a rapid enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to detect equine influenza virus directly from nasal swab material. This test can give a result and diagnosis the same working day that the sample is recieved.
As well as these rapid tests we still perform virus isolation from clinical samples using traditional mammalian cell culture techniques. Although it can take several weeks to grow and identify a virus using these methods, it remains important that we isolate current strains of circulating virus to help build up an epidemiological picture which may help in the future control of infection.
Tests Offered:
- Please click here to view a list of tests offered
Information Sheets:
- EVA Testing
