Owning an animal is an extraordinary experience, one that brings joy, beauty, and natural wonder into your home and family. Yet as amazing, and seemingly untouchable, as pets are, they can have serious health issues just like humans. To ensure that your pet’s health is at its best, it is worth both your and their time to find suitable, well-reviewed veterinary diagnostics companies.
Veterinary diagnostics companies can help both you and your pets in a variety of ways, from food safety testing to implementing contract lab services — antibody testing, heartworm testing, pathogen testing, etc..
Heartworm Antigen
In the United States, there are an estimated 70-80 million dogs and 74-96 cats that are in-home pets. A common parasite that can negatively affect your animal is that of the heartworm antigen. It is estimated that nearly one million American dogs are heartworm positive each year. For dogs, the severity of heartworm disease comes about from the number of worms that are within the heart (which can tend of anywhere from upwards of 30 or more), whereas cats, you are similarly affected by the disease, can become ill by just having two of them (where, in comparison to dogs, they usually have only 6 or fewer).
Treatment for heartworm can come at a high cost, tending around $1,000. To ensure preventative treatments are taken, you can take your pet to veterinary diagnostics companies and have them tested. They can administer a canine heartworm test to your dog and find out whether or not they are infected. If not, rather than seeking treatment, they can offer a monthly preventative medication that can be taken, one that will ensure that heartworm can be deflected and that later treatment will not be needed.
Equine Infectious Anemia Virus
Considering pets and animals owned, there are approximately two million American households that own a horse. One disease that regularly affects horses is that of the equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV): a potentially fatal retrovirus that is transmitted by bloodsucking insects (mosquitoes, horse-fly, dee-fly). When a horse is infected by EIAV, they may begin developing signs of the disease rather quickly. Similarly, those infected can die from the untreated disease within just two to three weeks.
The primary reason the disease is so scary is that it is extremely lethal and can be easily transferred from one body to another. It is said that just one-fifth of a teaspoon of blood from a feverish horse with chroinc EIAV can contain enough of the virus to infect up to 10,000 horses; furthermore, contaminated surgical equipment like needles and syringes can transfer the disease between animals.
Veterinary diagnostics companies can abet this process by providing equine infectious anemia virus antibody test kits. These test kits will help test your horse to see how well their immune system (antibodies) will be able to stand up to the infectious pathogens of EIAV (antigens). In this way, they can provide preventative measures that can test the health of your horses to ensure that their long-term health is key, and that, if needed, these veterinary diagnostics companies can offer medication that might better the immune system of your horse, further securing the health of your pet.
