US Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Food Safety Inspection Service and the Food and Drug Administration, has declared a major acceleration in BSE testing
Starlims reports that the California Animal Health and Food Safety Labs (CAHFS) at the University of California, Davis, is operating the company's Lims system to assist in sample analysis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
Earlier this year, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (Aphis), in cooperation with the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration, (FDA) declared a major acceleration in the nation's BSE testing programme.
In this announcement, CAHFS and a limited number of other regional analytical laboratories were certified to perform accelerated BSE testing.
Within two months of this announcement, the participating laboratories were required to be able to begin testing some 268,000 animals for BSE.
"When CAHFS was chosen as one of the testing laboratories for the new BSE surveillance programme, we quickly decided to partner with a Lims provider that could meet our increased needs for data integration and interoperability," said Jay Ross, IT manager at CAHFS, UC Davis.
"In addition, CAHFS required a Lims system that would complement the need to implement a very streamlined and efficient laboratory.
"By working with Starlims we have been able to implement a fully functional Lims system, within very tight time parameters". The Starlims solution at CAHFS was established within the designated time frame of two months.
Starlims receives samples submitted by USDA personnel from sampling facilities and slaughterhouses.
The accepted samples are identified and tracked in Starlims, rapid Elisa (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) tests are scheduled and results are imported directly from the plate readers.
For positive samples, confirmation tests are scheduled and samples are shipped to USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa.
All results are reported according to USDA and CAHFS standards in electronic form, using XML files, faxes or e-mails in accordance with the requirements of the receiving parties.
