Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters. Группа авторов

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Infectious Disease Management in Animal Shelters - Группа авторов


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treatment required?

      Is the disease life‐threatening?

      Is there a zoonotic risk?

      Diagnosis of existing disease states can also protect the health and welfare of individual animals and, in the case of transmissible or zoonotic diseases, the health of the entire shelter population, both animal and human. In addition to those indications described for screening tests, when it comes to disease diagnosis, practitioners should also consider how the results of a particular diagnostic test will alter the treatment or management plan for the individual animal or the shelter population at large.

      4.4.2 Population Level Testing

      In addition to testing clinically healthy animals, it is useful to perform disease surveillance in cohorts of animals with specific clinical syndromes. For example, collecting oropharyngeal swabs from cats with clinical signs of upper respiratory disease may help guide empirical treatments and direct husbandry practices in order to minimize disease transmission once particular pathogens are identified. This type of surveillance may help inform preventive care practices and be helpful in understanding baseline disease characteristics should frequency or severity of clinical syndromes increase or animals fail to respond to treatment as expected.

Assumed Infection Rate (%) Number of Animals to Test
2 120
3 80
4 60
5 45
10 25
15–20 15
25–30 10
≥40 5

      The frequency of surveillance is dependent upon the importance of the specific disease to the management of the population, historical trends, and resource availability; typical intervals include monthly, quarterly, biannual, or annual testing (National Research Council 1991). Results should be interpreted in terms of time (e.g. seasonal disease trends), location (e.g. building, ward, housing unit), and the individuals affected (e.g. species, age, sex, clinical signs) (United States Department of Health and Human Services 2012).

      Diagnostic testing plays a key role in individual animal risk assessment during a disease outbreak response. Definitive identification of the cause of an infectious disease outbreak is a critical step in its mitigation and control (O'Quin 2013). In such circumstances, consideration should be given to testing of animals that are presumed to be infected; exposed and at risk of infection; exposed but not at risk of infection; and those not yet exposed (Hurley and Pesavento 2013). Testing every animal is generally not necessary and may not yield more actionable results. Though the precise number of patients to test will depend on the stage of infection, diagnostic test accuracy, and disease prevalence, a minimum of three to six samples for both GI and respiratory diseases have been recommended in human outbreak investigations (British Columbia Provincial Infection Control Network 2011; Plantenga et al. 2011). See Chapter 6 for more information on this topic.

Schematic illustration of sensitivity, specificity and predictive value.
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