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)