Friday, December 07, 2012

PCR for Alpacas - Looking good.

We have received news from the Alpaca TB Support Group that the second stage of their privately funded PCR Proof of concept study is now complete and has come up with some encouraging results.

 The first screen was on faeces and sputum taken from animals with gross lesions and this achieved a high sensitivity - with no false positives. This second run was on samples from animals with much less advanced pathology and the results are described on the Alpaca TB Support Group website as follows:
"AHVLA scientists have now looked at the whole spectrum of pathology from minimal to severe that is found in camelid M. bovis infections. The results are very promising and far better than we had expected.

The test was able to detect nearly all of the camelids with the most severe pathology with a falling sensitivity as pathology became less severe. They were even able to detect some camelids that had minimal pathology.

The faecal samples were marginally more sensitive than nasal swabs. Due to the difficulty in collecting blood from a dead camelid, AHVLA were not able to evaluate blood samples as they were unable to collect sufficient suitable samples for testing."
Publication of the full trial results is in preparation and this study will be peer reviewed before it is published.

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