>>The Oregon Ferret Association (OFA) will be conducting Aleutian's Disease
>>Virus (ADV) saliva testing at it's May general meeting.
 
>Question: how are you going to arrange that in a way that the risk of
>cross-infection won't occur?  If any other clubs have also done this then
>posting your methods would also be of interest.  Are the ferrets staying
>in vehicles until it is their turn, with cleaning between?  Is the testing
>being done at the vehicles themselves?  Details, please.  (I am just
>curious, but I figure that knowing this may be useful for others so
>posting would make sense.)
 
1. At this point, we think getting people to start testing their ferrets
is more important than the relatively small risk of cross-contamination.
The "regulars" (less than 15 ferrets) won't be at any more of a risk than
at any other OFA meeting (it has been common practice for people to bring
their ferrets to interact in a playground area).
 
2. We can warn any "new" people of the risk of letting their ferrets play
together.  We don't think ferrets that are not allowed to commingle in the
play area will be at any greater risk than during a trip to the vet clinic
where there are often several pet carriers with ferrets in the waiting room
at the same time.
 
3. We plan on having the owners restrain the ferret while Elayne gets the
saliva sample without handling the ferret.  She will wash in-between
ferrets from different families, but hadn't planned on doing anything
elaborate.
 
So far, no one has even called to "register" for the test, so we don't know
if anyone will even be willing to go through the testing procedure at this
point.  Our hope was to get a lot of people to have the test done before
the bigger OFA ferret gathering in June, where a much higher risk of
disease transfer could occur.
 
Do any have any suggestions that may be of some help?  We don't really
want to go to extremes, since it seems silly if the OFA continues allowing
ferrets to play at the meetings and doesn't require ADV testing to attend
ferret events.  Maybe that will not be the case in the future, especially
if this casual testing turns up with a lot of positives.
 
Thank you for your question, Sukie!  We plan to do all that we can to avoid
cross-contamination but, as previously stated, we feel it is much more
important at this time to make people aware of ADV and have them start
testing their ferret(s).
[Posted in FML issue 3420]