“TECHNOLOGY is taking over,”
Dr Willie Loeffen, president of the
European Association of Veterinary
Laboratory Diagnosticians
(EAVLD), told a meeting on
Advances in diagnostics in Brussels
at the end of November.
“Laboratory diagnosis used to be
99% labour and 1% technology,
nowadays the emphasis is the other
way around. Technology is now an
integral and indispensable part of
veterinary laboratories.”
Dr Loeffen used the investigation
of PRRSV infection in pigs and the
more recent appearance of
Schmallenberg virus in Europe to
highlight how modern molecular
techniques could help to characterise
new disease threats rapidly.
“It took four years of laborious
work for us to characterise the cause
of PRRS, but thanks to sequencing
technology Schmallenberg virus took
just a few months.
“Technological developments mean
that diagnosticians now do things that
they could only dream about 10 or 20
years ago.”
As well as providing a means of
identifying new disease threats quickly,
the meeting highlighted the increasing role of diagnostic tools as an integral
part of maintaining animal health.
“Diagnostics are no longer just a
way of finding out what an animal
died of: they have a multitude of uses
on farm,” said Dr Kirk Adams,
director of product management at
Life Technologies, the American-based
biotechnology company
which hosted the
meeting.
“They mean that we
can take a more holistic
and proactive approach
to animal health; in
contrast to the reactive,
disease-driven approach
of the past.”
“As just one example,
better diagnostics allow a
more targeted approach
to treatment, and the
potential to reduce the use of broad-
spectrum drugs, such as certain
antibiotics, and thus comply with the
wishes of consumers and legislators.”
Dr Adams said that modern
diagnostic tools also provided the
means to improve vaccination
programmes and biosecurity, and were
essential for disease eradication
schemes and for improving herd health status, for example by
identifying persistently infected,
asymptomatic animals.
They also enable veterinarians to
monitor herd health and build up an
accurate and dynamic picture of health
status and risk profile as well as screen
for emerging disease threats.
“Veterinarians now
have access to a wider
range of better
diagnostics with tests
now faster, more
accurate and more
precise than ever
before,” Dr Adams
said. “The next 20 years
could see the biggest
change in the way we
manage production
animals in over a
hundred years.”
Dr Kees van Maanen, from the
Netherlands Animal health Service,
called for greater international co-operation to protect European animals
against threats from increasing global
interaction.
“Pathogens and insects do not
respect borders: trusting each other’s
results requires further harmonisation
and transparency for diagnostic
procedures between laboratories and
countries,” he said.
“Rapid and accurate diagnosis
contributes to disease management but
does not stop epidemics. However, it
has contributed significantly to gaining
insight into the epidemiology of
emerging diseases and formulating
appropriate measures.”
“The development of modern
diagnostics has given us the potential
to manage animal health and control
infectious diseases in production
animals far more effectively than in the
past – both on local and national or
regional levels. Recent experience with
unexpected disease outbreaks has
shown that we can now characterise
and track pathogens far more quickly
and accurately than ever before.”
“However, we need to make sure
that we keep veterinarians and farmers
informed about these developments,
so they know how to apply them in
practice in order to make the most of
them.”
“Diagnostics will continue to
become a more integral part of animal
health management in the next decade,
we just need to make sure we can
apply that knowledge in the best
possible way,” Dr Van Maanen said.
