McLEAN HOSPITAL POLICY FOR IMPORTATION OF ANIMALS FROM
NON-APPROVED VENDORS
Investigators wishing to import rodents into Mclean Hospital Animal Facilities from nonapproved vendors must comply with quarantine requirements. Animals will require
quarantine if they come from anywhere other than Charles River, Taconic, Jackson or
Harlan. An approved IACUC Protocol is a prerequisite for the use of these facilities.
Animals will be accepted for quarantine if they are NEGATIVE for all agents and
originate from a facility with acceptable biosecurity. Animals that are positive for one or
more excluded agents require rederivation before they enter the facility. This
requirement applies to all Mclean Animal Facilities, to minimize the chance of a
pathogen in one facility contaminating animals in the other facility. Any exception must
be approved in advance by a veterinarian.
Animals will not be accepted for transport in ambient temperatures that are less than 40ºF
or greater than 85ºF. For this reason, it may be difficult to accept shipments by air during
the summer and winter.
The quarantine process takes 7 weeks. Animals will be housed in a separate area from
the general colony animals, and subject to an intensive surveillance process using contact
sentinel animals. Investigators will generally not have access to animals during this
period, and breeding is discouraged unless the manager approves an exception in
advance. Release from quarantine into the main colony requires confirmed negative
results on the entire shipment. Positive animals must be euthanized or transferred offsite
for rederivation.
The quarantine process exists to ensure, to the greatest extent practicable, that animals
entering the ACF are free of excluded rodent pathogens. Please note that Helicobacter
spp are no longer excluded from the McLean campus, effective August 1, 2006.
Addendum to Rodent Quarantine Procedure:
Effective August 1st, 2008, all quarantined rodents at McLean Hospital will be
routinely fed fenbendazole medicated feed during the quarantine period.
Pinworms (Syphacia spp. and Aspicularis spp.) are common intestinal parasites of
rodents that can have an adverse effect on general health and breeding success. Pinworm
eggs persist in the environment and established endemic infections are difficult to
eradicate. These parasites are on McLean Hospital’s excluded rodent pathogen list, but
may escape detection by routine quarantine sentinel procedures.
Fenbendazole medicated rodent diet (150ppm) is a commercially available treatment for
pinworms that is generally considered to be both safe and effective.
It is widely used in rodent colonies to eliminate and control pinworm infestations and fed
to quarantined rodents to reduce the risk of introducing pinworms into a colony.
Investigators who object to the use of prophylactic fenbendazole treatment on their
research animals may request an exemption from the IACUC committee. The request
should be submitted in writing to the IACUC and include scientific justification. If
approved, animals exempt from medicated feed will require additional testing at the
discretion of the attending veterinarian. Investigators will be responsible for additional
expenses incurred.
Additional testing will include tape test slides to be collected by the investigators and
microscopically examined by the veterinarian or animal care staff for presence of
pinworm ova. Additionally, supplemental quarantine sentinels will be required for direct
intestinal examination for the presence of pinworms.
As with all excluded pathogens, the attending veterinarian and facility manager reserve
the right to reject shipments of animals from facilities with recent evidence of pinworms.
For importing rodents originating from facilities with active pinworm infestation,
rederivation of the line will be required, to be carried out by an IACUC approved facility
at the expense of the investigator.
[Most recently revised 1/09]
The McLean Viral Exclusion list corresponds to the Charles River Laboratories
“Assessment Plus Serology Panel” as follows:
Mouse Viruses and Bacteria
Rat Viruses and Bacteria
Mouse Hepatitis Virus (MHV)
Pneumonia Virus of Mice (PVM)
Lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCM)
Sendai virus
Minute Virus of Mice (MVM)
Mouse adenovirus (MAV)
Ectromelia - Mousepox virus
Reovirus (REO)
Epizootic Diarrhea of Infant Mice (EDIM)
Mouse Cytomegalovirus (MCMV)
Mouse Thymic Virus (MTLV)
Polyoma virus (POLY)
Theiler’s Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus
(TMEV)
Mouse Parvovirus (MPV)
Lactic Dehydrogenase Elevating Virus
(LDHEV)
Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus
(LCMV)
K Virus (K)
Hantavirus Hantaan (HTN)
Cilia-Associated Respiratory Bacillus
(CARB)
New Murine Norovirus (MNV)
Mycoplasma pulmonis (MPUL)
Rat Corona Virus/Sialodacryoadenitis
(RCV/SDAV)
Kilham Rat Virus (Parvovirus of rats)
Toolan's H-1 Virus (H-1)
Sendai virus
Hantaan virus (HTN)
Pneumonia Virus of Mice (PVM)
Rat Cytomegalovirus (RCMV)
Reo-3
Infectious Diarrhea of Infant Rats (IDIR)
Theiler’s Murine Encephalomyelitis Virus
(TMEV)
Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus
(LCMV)
Encephalitozoon Cuniculi (ECUN)
Cilia-Associated Respiratory Bacillus
(CARB)
Mycoplasma pulmonis (MPUL)
Rat minute virus (MRV)
(ROTA-B)
Bacteria
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Bacillus piliformis (Tyzzer's
disease)
Citrobacter freundii
Leptospira spp.
Mycoplasma pulmonis
Salmonella enteritidis





Spirillum minus
Streptobacillus moniliformis
Streptococcus pneumoniae
Yersinia pseudotuberculosis
Yersinia spp.
Parasites
Arthropods (fur mites) — Such as Polyplax spp., Radfordia spp., Myobis musculi, Psorergates
simplex, Mycoptes musculinus, Trichoecius rombousti, etc.
Protozoa and Helminths (pinworms and tapeworms) — Such as Haemobartonella muris
(rats), Eperythrozoon coccoides (mice), Spironucleus muris, Aspiculuris tetraptera, Syphacia
spp., Hymenolepis nana, Hymenolepis diminuta and Trichosomoides crassicauda (rats).