Rainbow Calf Scour 5 Released

BELGIUM - Bio-X Diagnostics has just released Rainbow Calf Scour 5 on the market. This quick test for detecting the main causes of calf scour uses vertical-flow immunochromatography for reliable diagnosis of the causal pathogen in just 10 minutes.
calendar icon 19 December 2011
clock icon 3 minute read
Biox

Rainbow Calf Scour 5 is designed for field use by the practising veterinarian. The particularly ingenious kit is extremely easy to use, even in a barn, and requires no additional equipment other than a pair of gloves.

Diarrhoea is one of the major causes of mortality in calves in the first month of life.

Diagnosing the causes of diarrhoea necessarily requires laboratory testing, for it is not possible to identify the causal agent on the basis of the clinical signs. Rainbow Calf Scour 5 lets you detect the presence of rotavirus, coronavirus, E. coli attachment factor F5 (ex-K99), and Cryptosporidium parvum.

The test – and this is something new – can also detect abnormally high levels of the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium perfringens.

In certain circumstances the bacterium develops uncontrollably and causes dysbiosis with diarrhoea and sometimes sudden death due to enterotoxaemia.

Rainbow Calf Scour 5 lets you quantify the level of Clostridium perfringens in the calf faeces, with results that are fairly close to those obtained by a bacterial count under anaerobic conditions, i.e., a test that may be done only in a laboratory by specialized technicians.

In the latter case, the result will be reliable only if the samples are transferred to the laboratory under appropriate conditions, which is to say at 4°C, with minimum delay between the moments of sampling and analysis.

It is difficult to observe such conditions in practice. Rainbow Calf Scour 5 thus makes it possible to get around all these constraints.

In practice, the kit contains five pentavalent tests. Each test consists of a tube of chromatography strips and a sample tube containing a sampling scoop and dilution buffer. Each tube of strips contains five strips (one per valence) identified by coloured stickers. The veterinarian takes up a scoopful of calf faeces, places it in the sample tube, and shakes the contents until the sample is well dissolved in the solution.

All that remains to be done is to place the sample tube in the large tube and, after carefully closing the latter, wait ten minutes. The results are read by the naked eye: two lines = positive, one line = negative.

Since Clostridium perfringens normally resides in calves’ guts, the intensity of its specific line must be determined. This is done by comparing the Rainbow Calf Scour test strip with the pictures of developed strips that have been included in the kit’s instructions.

Rainbow Calf Scour 5 may be purchased from Bio-X Diagnostics at the address below or online by secure payment via its Internet site: http://eshop.biox.be/. However, online ordering is limited to the twenty- seven EU Member States. Clients outside these twenty-seven countries may nevertheless order tests directly by contacting us at the following e-mail address: [email protected].

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