Hi Jennifer, I've been using the Avecon POCT kit for 2 years now, and
confirming any positive results with a blood test at a later date.
People have had problems with this test but it has to be done exactly to
the instructions, which a lot of people seem to have trouble following
and I believe this caused the inaccurate results.  The main thing is the
ferrets MUST not have any food for at least one hour before the mouth
swabbing is done.  We have used around 500 of these test kits and the
failure rate seems to be no different than the usual blood test.  Last
year we had ferrets show positive to the Avecon test but negative to the
POC test, this year those same ferrets were positive on both types of
test so it looks like the Avecon test is picking up the virus well
before the POC test.  We dual tested 50 ferrets in Feb. to check the
test kits were still working correctly.  (Out of date shortly)
 
Chris
 
The Wessex Ferret Club    www.wessexferretclub.co.uk
<http://www.wessexferretclub.co.uk/>
[Posted in FML issue 4124]