General specimen submission guidelines:
Please complete a laboratory submission form for each submission and include only ONE owner per submission form. As a minimum, we require the following information to provide timely results:
- Animal species and age
- Site of specimen
In addition, please provide the following information if/when available:
- Brief clinical history (please note if the animal was recently outside of Canada)
- Treatment history (including antimicrobial name and date of last dose, if available)
- Previous AVC Diagnostic Services laboratory number (if this is a resubmission or follow-up culture)
Note: If submitting samples via courier please ensure the requisitions arrive clean and dry by enclosing them in a plastic zip-lock bag, separate from the samples and ice packs.
AVC Diagnostic Services Bacteriology and Mycology Laboratory is a Containment Level 2 (CL2) Laboratory. Therefore, the following samples will NOT BE ACCEPTED:
- Brain tissue (swabs from brain tissue are acceptable)
- Tissue or swabs from old world monkeys or apes (e.g., macaques, bonobos, chimpanzees)
- Suspect cases of blastomycosis, histoplasmosis, psittacosis, Q fever/coxiellosis, rabies, tuberculosis, or tularaemia, regardless of serology testing result. Organisms may still be present in samples when serology testing is negative. Please contact the laboratory to determine where to send the sample.
- For aquatic species suspect cases of pathogens identified as Exotic to Canada by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)