UK DIAGNOSTIC LAB NEWS From the Director’s Desk Craig Carter, DVM PhD Dipl. ACVPM
UK Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (UKVDL) Department of Veterinary Science, College of Agriculture, Food & the Environment, Lexington, KY
I am writing this having survived the usual stress of the end of fiscal year with students returning last week to the University of Kentucky (UK) campus for classes. As of August 20, President Capilouto reported that more than 18,000 students have been tested with a positivity rate of 1%. Tis is much lower than most of the other institutions and is very encouraging. We are confident that the comprehensive testing program implemented at UK along daily mandatory reporting by all UK students, faculty and staff will enable the semester to proceed successfully.
Te UKVDL is maintaining our normal 7-days open schedule to the public for our services albeit in a ful- ly locked down mode. Clients are not allowed in the building but communicate with our faculty and staff by phone. Specimens and paperwork are placed on a special table outside our diagnostic services section. All 15 clinical and support sections are still on a split-team operation to maintain separation to prevent any one section having to lose all their employees to a 2-week quarantine. If Team A must quarantine, Team B will be able to back them up. Regarding our DVM students from LMU, we switched from class- room teaching to Zoom (virtual) teaching in March to eliminate any risk of COVID-19 exposure for our mission critical faculty/staff. Te feedback from the LMU students has been positive. We just entered the 20th week with this operation and so far, so good!
In my last article, I described how many veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the country have de- veloped methods of testing for the SARS-CoV-2 to conduct surveillance in animals. Te UKVDL and the Breathitt laboratory at Murray State University have joined the KY Office of the State Veterinarian, the KY Cabinet for Health, and KY Department of Fish and Wildlife in a proposal for CDC funding to conduct SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in Kentucky.
If funded, this project will commence in October
2020. Te project has three objectives. First, companion animal practitioners aware of pets and therapy animals cared for by COVID-19 test positive owners will collect samples for testing at our diagnostic lab- oratories. Second, surveillance of farm animals will be done by collecting and testing samples on farms, stockyards and laboratory necropsy samples. Finally, surveillance samples are to be collected from bats in high-risk settings, especially in parts of the state where there has been clusters of confirmed human cases of COVID-19.
In October, stakeholders will be notified and protocols delivered with actual specimen collection and testing scheduled for November 2020 through June 2021. We will keep you apprised on the progress of this study. I am very proud to report that over 20 veterinary diagnostic laboratories in the US are testing animals for SARS-CoV-2 and at least 8 have gained CLIA certification to test human samples, aiding in the battle against COVID-19 in the true spirit of One Health. On August 22, Dr. Anthony Fauci. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases personally thanked the veterinary profession at the virtual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association for its role in helping to combat COVID-19.
https://www.avma.org/journals/white-house-adviser-fauci-delivers-thanks-updates-covid-19
Please send us your ideas on how we can improve our services to for you and the animal owners and pro- ducers here in Kentucky. We thank all of our clients for using our laboratory. We hope that you, your staff and your families remain healthy and safe throughout this pandemic. Working together with our allied health professions, we are certain to win the war against COVID-19.
Continued on pg. 16 12 KVMA News - Diagnostic Rounds
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