Application of the ISO 9001 quality management system at laboratory animal breeding facilities improves the production efficiency and quality of laboratory animals

Chiang chun yi

Abstract

Production of specific pathogen-free (SPF) chickens, embryonated eggs and clean conventional rabbits is an important mission and service of the Animal Drug Inspection Branch (ADIB), within the Council of Agriculture’s Animal Health Research Institute. In order to improve the production efficiency and quality of laboratory animals, the ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS) was implemented at ADIB in 2009. As a result of this implementation, ADIB has been more effective in highlighting important topics for management, defining policy and quality control objectives, monitoring critical points at animal breeding facilities, defining structural work, completing and updating important documents, and in training staff. ADIB was officially ISO 9001 certified in 2010. As a result of continuous SOP revision, staff training and QMS implementation, SPF chickens and embryonated eggs now test negative for 18 agents. Furthermore, 3,000 additional SPF eggs are supplied each year for the purpose of animal disease diagnostics, animal drug inspections, as well as for research and vaccine production purposes. The production efficiency and quality of clean, conventional rabbits have also been improved, such that the post-weaning survival rate has increased by 23% while at the same time the infection rate of Encephalitozoon cuniculi decreased by 27%. These results demonstrat that the implementation of the ISO 9001 QMS greatly facilitated the improvement of production efficiency and the quality of SPF chickens, embryonated eggs and clean conventional rabbits.

Competition between historical and newly invading classical swine fever viruses in co-infected pigs

Chia-Yi Chang

Abstract

Classical swine fever (CSF), which is caused by the classical swine fever virus (CSFV), is an economically important and highly contagious disease infecting domestic and wild pigs. In Taiwan, CSFVs identified in field outbreaks have been found to belong to two distinct genotypes. Since 1996, the CSFV population has shifted from the historical sub-genotype, 3.4, to a newly invading sub-genotype, 2.1. This study analyzed the competition between these two sub-genotype viruses in co-infected pigs to simulate natural situations in the field. In pigs inoculated with the same dose of each virus sub-genotype, results demonstrate that the sub-genotype 2.1 strain, consistently replicates more efficiently than the sub-genotype 3.4 strain.. In the second passage of co-infection in pigs, the replication efficiency of the sub-genotype 2.1 strain was even higher than during the first passage. Comparisons between the first and second passages of co-infection, demonstrated that the genotype 2.1 strain could be detected earlier in co-infected P2 pigs than in co-infectedP1 pigs. Moreover, the sub-genotype 3.4 strain was detected later in co-infected P2 pigs than in co-infected P1 pigs. This study thus demonstrates a possible explanation for the observed CSFV population shifts in the field, whereby the newly invading sub-genotype 2.1 replicated and dispersed more efficiently than sub-genotype 3.4 did, leading to the predominance of 2.1 viruses in the field. These findings will be useful for the further understanding of CSFV biology and therefore, helpful for the control of CSFV.