Positive: A positive blood sample confirms active infection, usually clinical. Appropriate treatment should
be started. Previous infection will not provide protection against future exposure.
Low Level Positive: These results also confirm infection, but at a lower level. Most often, these animals are
not clinical, but may quickly present signs of illness, or continue remaining sub-clinical for extended periods of time.
Negative: Negative blood does not rule out sub-clinical infection. Sub-clinical animals are frequently blood
negative, swab positive. Combined choanal/cloacal swabs should be submitted to ensure negative results.
Positive: A positive combined swab will confirm infection, although the animal may or may not be clinical at the
time the swab was taken.
Low Level Positive: A confirmed infection, but at lower levels than normally associated with clinical disease.
This may also reflect a contamination for the environment. LLP results are very useful to determine clean-up efforts.
Negative: A negative swab confirms no organism is present at the time of testing.
Blood and choanal/cloacal swab: Submitted together, they will be tested and charged as one test.
Post Mortem: Swabs from liver and other organs provide the best samples. These swabs are excessively "hot," confirming disease.
Environmental Testing: Thorough swabbing of environment is necessary for accurate results (cage corners, a/c vents, and other
areas not easily or recently cleaned). When determining clean-up efforts, swabs should be tested individually to confirm success in
various locations.