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“We just became full service a few months ago,
but we are developing more and more tests to make sure
that we can offer all those services that people need.”
— Dr. Maria Bravo Araya
In addition to her work as an assistant professor,
Bravo Araya also serves as the interim director and
clinical veterinary virologist for the university’s
Diagnostic Services Unit (DSU), a full-service
veterinary laboratory offering bacteriology, serology,
molecular diagnostics, parasitology analysis, necropsy
and hippology.
“We just became full service a few months ago,
but we are developing more and more tests to make
sure that we can offer all those services that people
need,” she says.
Initially established to offer necropsy services
to support teaching and research at the University
of Calgary, the DSU has expanded over the past few
years to offer diagnostic services that were otherwise
unavailable in Alberta, or only available on a
limited basis. For example, Bravo Araya explains, the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the provincial
government both operate labs in Alberta. Their
services, however, don’t cover all the needs of animal
owners in the province.
“Those labs are set up mostly for outbreaks and
reportable diseases,” she explains. “So the idea was to
offer a service that could help with prevention as well.”
Today, the DSU’s molecular diagnostics lab
plays an important role in definitively detecting
conditions like strangles. Although the condition is
caused by a bacteria, it can sometimes be difficult to
diagnose. Using a PCR test — similar to the kind of
PCR test done to detect the coronavirus in humans
— the molecular diagnostics team can identify the
presence of the bacteria, even if it is difficult to
detect otherwise.
“Sometimes, bacteria can be a bit tricky to grow,
and sometimes you can potentially have false
negatives,” explains Bravo Araya. “Now that we have
the molecular lab, we are also offering a PCR test
for strangles. So, basically, we can compare both. We
can do the culture, and then we can do a PCR that
is going to look for the DNA of the bacteria, so we
can find it even if the bacteria is dead or it doesn’t
grow well.”
The molecular diagnostics lab is also able to
test for equine herpesvirus 1 and 4. If the virus
is found in a blood test, DSU staff can do further
tests to determine if it is the variant that will cause
neurological issues.
Perhaps most importantly, the DSU strives to
provide vets and animal owners with results quickly.
When tests are sent out of province or to large
commercial labs like IDEXX for processing, Bravo
Araya explains, veterinarians can face a longer wait
for results, often without the same level of service.
“Especially for the molecular lab, we are making
sure that our turnaround times are one to three
days, to make sure they have the answers they need,”
she says.
“And with these big companies, you don’t get
the same level of professional support. In our unit,
I’m a virologist. We have a bacteriologist. We have
a parasitologist, and then we have a big group of
pathologists as well. So if there are any questions
about the testing, they can email us or call us directly,
and we can answer all the questions they might have.”
As the DSU continues to grow, Bravo Araya is
hoping to gather more feedback from veterinarians
and animal owners to find out which services are
most needed in Alberta.
“We have the core services, but we are already
thinking about things like clinical pathology,” she
says. “That is something that we don’t have right now,
and it’s something that I’m sure equine vets would be
very happy to have in province.”
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