Distemper Disease in Ferret

Quantitative analysis of Canine Distemper Virus (CDV) and strain typing (vaccine/infectious) which enables a reliable diagnosis on recently vaccinated animals with most of marketed vaccines

Reasons for testing

 Diagnostics of CDV infection in dog and ferret
 Post-diagnosis monitoring
 Assessment of epidemiological risk (to reveal viral spread in a group)

Test characteristics

 quantitative RT-PCR
 Limit of detection
 Quantitative analysis
 Typing of ALL vaccine strains (distinction of all infectious strains from all the vaccine strains available on the french veterinary market)

Diagnostic samples

 Blood (EDTA) (whatever the clinical signs)
 Blood and CSF (EDTA) in neurological forms
 Blood (EDTA) and conjunctival or oropharyngeal cells (cytobrushes or swabs) in presence of clinical signs (you can also perform kennel cough testing)
 Kidney, spleen, liver and lung post-mortem (with no formalin)
In chronic forms, we advise you to collect several samples (blood and other sample(s) according to the clinical symptoms).
For post-diagnostic monitoring, it is better to look for the virus in a pool of samples (blood, urine, conjunctival and oropharyngeal cells).

Result interpretation

The brand name/company of the used vaccines, the vaccination dates and the clinical context are necessary for result interpretation and must be indicated on the analysis request form.
 Positive result: compatible with a disease caused by CDV or viral spread
 Low quantity of vaccine strain: the vaccine strain was detected, probably linked to a recent vaccination
 Negative result: absence of Canine Distemper Virus in the analyzed sample or quantity lower than the limit of detection. An acute form of the disease can be excluded.