SNAP® Giardia document library

Prevalence of Giardia in "symptomatic" dogs and cats throughout the United States as determined by the IDEXX SNAP® Giardia Test.
DD Bowman^*1, JM Scarlett¹, J Garrett², L Lorentzen².
¹College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY;
²IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., Westbrook, ME.

The availability of a new diagnostic test for detecting the presence of the antigens of Giardia spp. in the feces of dogs and cats made it possible to look at the national prevalence of this infection in in-clinic cases. The advantage of using the SNAP test is that it is simple to perform in a clinical setting with reproducible results as opposed to floation and microscopy, which require superior staff training and inherent difficulties in detecting infections—especially when only trophozoites are present.

The survey requested that clinics report the results of 20 or more tests performed on dogs or cats with signs of either diarrhea or vomiting. Through the efforts of IDEXX, the number of responses was excellent, with a total of 12,179 test results being reported. Among dogs with intestinal signs, the prevalence of Giardia antigen was 18.5% of 9,108 samples. For cats, the prevalence was somewhat lower (10.8%) among 3,071 samples. The prevalence of positive results is being calculated by clinical signs and by geographical distribution (e.g., by state and ZIP Code). The survey is currently entering a second phase, where the number of samples collected will be increased and the geographic distribution of participating clinics will be expanded.

American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists. 50^th Annul Meeting; July 16–19, 2005; Minneapolis, Mn.