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FELASA recommendations for the health monitoring of mouse, rat, hamster, guinea pig and rabbit colonies in breeding and experimental units
Open accessAbstract
The microbiological quality of experimental animals can critically influence animal welfare and the validity and reproducibility of research data. It is therefore important for breeding and experimental facilities to establish a laboratory animal health monitoring (HM) programme as an integrated part of any quality assurance system. FELASA has published recommendations for the HM of rodent and rabbit colonies in breeding and experimental units (Nicklas et al. Laboratory Animals, 2002), with the intention of harmonizing HM programmes. As stated in the preamble, these recommendations need to be adapted periodically to meet current developments in laboratory animal medicine. Accordingly, previous recommendations have been revised and shall be replaced by the present recommendations. These recommendations are aimed at all breeders and users of laboratory mice, rats, Syrian hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits as well as diagnostic laboratories. They describe essential aspects of HM, such as the choice of agents, selection of animals and tissues for testing, frequency of sampling, commonly used test methods, interpretation of results and HM reporting. Compared with previous recommendations, more emphasis is put on the role of a person with sufficient understanding of the principles of HM, opportunistic agents, the use of sentinel animals (particularly under conditions of cage-level containment) and the interpretation and reporting of HM results. Relevant agents, testing frequencies and literature references are updated. Supplementary information on specific agents and the number of animals to be monitored and an example of a HM programme description is provided in the appendices.
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“The animals’ provenance, their health or immune status, and their history of previous testing or procedures can influence their physiology and behaviour, as well as their response to treatments, and thus impact on study outcomes.”
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Metadata
- Authors
- FELASA working group on revision of guidelines for health monitoring of rodents and rabbits, Mähler (Convenor), M., Berard, M., Feinstein, R., Gallagher, A., Illgen-Wilcke, B., Pritchett-Corning, K., & Raspa, M.
- Affiliations
- GV-SOLAS, Gesellschaft für Versuchstierkunde
- Swedish Veterinary Agency (SE)
- Medical Research Council (GB)
- University of Washington (US)
- AALAS, American Association for Laboratory Animal Science
- National Research Council (IT)
- Venue
- Laboratory Animals
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-02-04
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 178-192
- ISSN
- 0023-6772 (ISSN-L)
- 1758-1117
- OpenAlex
- W2153218957
- Semantic Scholar
- 3f0f57dfc81bdbf0b4adc599d3696d57bd2535a2
- Cited by
- 646
- References
- 382
- Citations by year
- 2026: 36 · 2025: 63 · 2024: 69 · 2023: 60 · 2022: 67 · 2021: 73 · 2020: 62 · 2019: 62 · 2018: 47 · 2017: 42 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 12
- FWCI
- 51.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2014-09-02)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Laboratory Animals (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal testing and alternatives
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Microbiology › Microbial infections and disease research
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Keywords
- laboratory animal health monitoring, sentinel animals, opportunistic pathogens, laboratory mice, laboratory rats, golden hamster, guinea pig, rabbits, laboratory animal medicine
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