EHV-1 Real Time PCR

Reducing the cost of Equine Herpes Virus-1 (EHV-1) testing: A new real-time PCR assay for quick and sensitive diagnosis of EHV-1.

EHV-1 infections are ubiquitous in horses throughout the world and cause significant economic losses to the equine industry through respiratory disease, abortion, neonatal foal death and myeloencaphalopathy. Some EHV-1 variants (DNA_pol) carrying the D₇₅₂ marker are associated with neurological disease.

Virus isolation from a nasopharyngeal swab or blood is the “gold standard” for the diagnosis of EHV-1 shedding (or viremia) horses but this method may take several weeks to complete. Because a gel-based PCR assay does not provide quantitative data, does not use an internal control and is more laborious, our laboratory has implemented and validated a new real-time PCR assay for the diagnosis of EHV-1. This new test is slightly faster; it yields quantitative data that provides Ct values (Cycle of threshold); sensitivity and specificity are equal or greater than gel-based PCR and it has an internal control that shows the presence (or absence) of PCR inhibitors in a particular specimen. In addition, this new test has high throughput capability.

Price: The fee for the new real-time PCR test for EHV-1 is $35.00 per animal (reduced from $55.00).

Specimen and turn around: Please continue to provide a pair of specimens from each animal tested. The desired ante mortem specimens are nasal swabs/washes AND 10 ml of anti-coagulated (EDTA) blood. Turnaround time will be within 24 to 48 hours.