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Participate in the Merck Animal Health Equine Biosurveillance Program

By registering for this program, Merck Animal Health will send you sampling kits and provide rapid diagnostic PCR testing for 6 major equine respiratory pathogens:

Sample analysis will be performed at the Diagnostic Service of the Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire in St-Hyacinthe at no cost.

  • Equine Herpesvirus types 1 & 4
  • Equine Influenza Virus
  • Equine Rhinitis A and B Viruses
  • Streptococcus equi, subsp. equi.

Horses selected for sampling must meet the following criteria:

Acute onset of unexplained fever: Body temperature should be ≥ 38.6°C (101.5°F)

AND

At least one of the following signs:

  • Nasal discharge
  • Cough
  • Acute onset of neurologic disease

Samples must be collected within 7 days of onset of clinical signs when shedding is most likely.
Please remember that those criteria must be met for samples to be tested by the laboratory.

“*” indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Clinic Name*

Veterinarian Name*

Contact Information

(Kits can’t be sent to a PO Box)
Consent*
By submitting the above information, I agree to the Privacy Policy.
Contact Us for more information.
Please note that by registering for this program, you will receive emails from Intervet Canada Corp., operating in Canada as Merck Animal Health, relating to your registration as well as statistics regarding the samples collected. You may unsubscribe at any time.
By clicking the “SUBMIT” button you agree to the terms and conditions for enrollment in the Merck Animal Health Equine Biosurveillance Program.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

We are pleased to offer you the opportunity to participate in the Merck Animal Health Equine Biosurveillance Program.

  • Merck Animal Health will provide rapid diagnostic PCR testing for 6 major equine respiratory pathogens: Equine Herpesvirus types 1 & 4, Equine Influenza Virus, Equine Rhinitis A and B Viruses, as well as, Streptococcus equi subsp. equi.
  • Sample analysis will be performed at the Diagnostic Service of the Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire in St-Hyacinthe. The cost of the diagnostic kits, overnight shipping and testing will be paid for by Merck Animal Health.
  • If submitted independently, this panel of tests would cost approximately $220 per horse.
  • This service is a value-added program offered to selected clinics that have a high volume of equine patients under a preventative medicine program. Clinic inclusion will be re-evaluated on an annual basis.
THE PURPOSE OF THE MERCK ANIMAL HEALTH EQUINE BIOSURVEILLANCE PROGRAM IS THREE-FOLD:
  1. To provide a valuable diagnostic tool to assist in obtaining an accurate and timely diagnosis during an acute respiratory disease outbreak so that you can provide optimal treatment, quarantine, and vaccination strategies to your clients and their horses.
  2. To provide the horse industry with better knowledge of the prevalence and epidemiology of the equine respiratory pathogens circulating in Canada.
  3. To evaluate the efficacy of current vaccination protocols.

As part of this service, each participating clinic will be provided with a diagnostic kit containing the following items:

  • Sampling supplies to test horses. Each individual patient sampling set includes 2 nasal swabs. Blood (EDTA) tube to be provided by participating clinic. PCR testing will be performed on nasal secretions (EHV-1 & 4, EIV, ERAV, ERBV as well as S. equi subsp. equi) and whole blood (EHV-1). Samples will be archived for each patient in case additional testing is indicated.
  • Pre-addressed courier labels to be used when submitting samples to the laboratory.
  • Laboratory submission forms that must be completed for each set of patient samples submitted. One objective of this program is to gain a better understanding of the epidemiology and risk factors associated with these viral and bacterial pathogens in order to improve patient care and prophylactic protocols. Therefore, it is critical that you provide pertinent patient information including signalment, clinical signs, vaccination status, and recent travel history.
  • An illustrated flowsheet on Nasal Swab Technique & Whole Blood Collection that details how to determine which horse(s) to sample and how to collect appropriate samples.
  • If additional sampling supplies, forms, or courier labels are needed, please contact your Merck Animal Health representative.
SAMPLING AND SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
  • To optimize the sensitivity of testing procedures used, it is important to sample only those horses that are symptomatic. Criteria for inclusion are:
    • Acute onset of unexplained fever: T ≥ 38.6°C (101.5°F)

      AND
    • At least one of the following signs:
      • Nasal discharge
      • Cough
      • Acute onset of neurologic disease
    • Samples should be collected within 7 days of onset of clinical signs when shedding is most likely.
Please refrain from sampling asymptomatic horses or chronic cases. Affected horses must be sampled within 7 days of onset of clinical signs when shedding of causative agent is most likely.
Unless indicated, a maximum of 2 samples (from symptomatic horses) per location is encouraged. This service should be used as a diagnostic aid, not a screening tool.

  • Sampling (see Flowsheet on Nasal Swab Technique & Whole Blood Collection)
  • Clearly label all samples with the date, name of horse and owner. Please complete the submission form for each horse tested. Samples submitted from horses that do not meet the inclusion criteria OR lack an adequate clinical history, will not be processed at the expense of Merck Animal Health. Submit samples on ice and send overnight using the enclosed pre-addressed courier labels.
  • Testing will be performed Monday through Friday. Test results will be reported back to you by e-mail within 48 hours of receipt of the samples. (Samples received Friday afternoon will be processed Monday morning.) Samples collected on Fridays should be refrigerated over the weekend and submitted the following Monday morning.

The Merck Animal Health technical services team is passionate about the information this program is arming participating practitioners with and the insight it is giving the equine veterinary community as a whole.
We sincerely hope that this program will be of benefit to your practice and to your clients. Feel free to contact us should you have questions regarding any aspect of this program.
Numerous factors can impact parameters such as the accuracy, the sensitivity or the specificity of a given laboratory test. Merck Animal Health cannot be held responsible for any laboratory test result that would not be in concordance with the health state of a horse, its exposure or its carrier state of a given organism.
Merck Animal Health cannot be held responsible should a horse be identified as a carrier of a pathogen that could represent a serious threat for other horses (for example: EHV-1 neuropathogenic strain).
When sending samples to the Diagnostic Service of the Faculté de Médecine Vétérinaire, I thereby agree to transfer them to this institution. I hereby agree, as part of the Merck Animal Health Equine Biosurveillance Program that the information in this application and the results thereof can be used by Merck Animal Health and the Diagnostic Service of the Faculté de Médecine vétérinaire for purposes such as research, development, statistics and publication. Personal information collected on the laboratory submission form will be treated by the Diagnostic Service of the Faculté de Médecine vétérinaire according to the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information (chapter A-2.1). No personal information will be communicated to Merck Animal Health. I also understand and agree that if a sample I sent for testing is identified as being positive for a reportable disease, the information about the case as it appears on the sample submission form and the results of the tests could be communicated on my behalf to a competent authority by Merck Animal Health.