New Zealand Animal Health Reference Laboratory
The New Zealand Animal Health Reference Laboratory is responsible for all testing of suspected exotic diseases and specialised diagnostic testing in the disciplines of virology, bacteriology, molecular biology, immunology, and fish diseases. It is also responsible for the design and managing of surveys of animal health in New Zealand.
The functions of the NZAHRL include:
- Specialised diagnostic testing in virology, bacteriology, molecular biology, immunology, and fish diseases. The laboratory will only perform specialised testing which is not available on a commercial basis, and which provides useful information on New Zealand's animal health status.
- Centralised control of referrals of samples to experts within New Zealand and overseas, when the diagnostic capability is not available in-house, or a second opinion is required.
- Designing and carrying out animal disease surveys.
- Quality assurance: managing inter-laboratory quality assurance programmes, and overviewing and providing technical input to the audit of all approved veterinary diagnostic laboratories which are supplying surveillance information to the Crown.
Where necessary the NZAHRL purchases specialist expertise to supplement that of its full-time staff in the following areas: pathology, haematology, parasitology, species experts, library services, and apiculture. These experts are based at organisations such as crown research institutes, universities, and state-owned enterprises.
Page last updated: 30 April 2008