Guidelines for accreditation of health monitoring programmes and testing laboratories

FELASA has a long tradition of publishing recommendations on health monitoring of breeding and experimental colonies of rodents and rabbits, and also for other species such as dogs, cats and pigs, non-human primates, and small ruminants. They describe the methods to be used, frequency of sampling, sample size and organisms to be monitored. These recommendations are now widely used and breeders or users commonly report on health monitoring of their animal colonies, using the phrase ‘in accordance with FELASA recommendations’. It has been the intention of FELASA, through guidelines, to establish working procedures for a FELASA accreditation process of health monitoring programmes and for testing laboratories involved in health monitoring. An accreditation board will assess compliance with these guidelines. FELASA accreditation should be viewed as complementary to other quality systems, for example as described for diagnostic laboratories and for animal units.