Regional Veterinary Laboratories (RVLs) are based in Athlone, Cork, Dublin, Kilkenny, Limerick and Sligo. During October 2015, a total of 807 carcasses were submitted for necropsy comprising of 388 ovine carcasses, 150 bovine carcasses, and 76 porcinecarcasses. In most cases the cause of death could not be identified or confirmed by the farmer or attending private veterinary practitioner (PVP) and the specialist expertise available in RVLs was sought to provide a definitive diagnosis. Submission ofsuch cases to RVLs throughout the country provide important passive surveillance disease information and assist in farm management, herd health and animal welfare decisions.In addition to necropsy on submitted carcasses, RVLs carried out testing on 3,617 diagnostic samples submitted by PVPs. Diagnostic samples can be crucial to diagnosis of disease in the live animal or for determining cause of death in situations where submission of entire carcasses is not possible.The following report details a selection of the findings from RVLs during October 2015 and it is hoped that some of the descriptions provided may be useful to PVPs when attempting diagnosis of disease on-farm or in choosing to advise farmers to submit samples or carcasses for further testing.
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