Current Strategies for Controlling/Eliminating Opportunistic Microorganisms

The strategies used to control or eliminate opportunistic microorganisms from an animal colony depend on these organisms' risk to institutional research programs. The research benefits of controlling or eliminating the microorganisms must be balanced against the control measures' cost, complexity, and probability of success. A nonessential control strategy may be so complicated, expensive, and time consuming that it is circumvented (intentionally or unintentionally) by those expected to use it. In this paper, we outline an approach for analyzing the risk associated with each organism and for developing a control strategy that includes consideration of the research requirements, numbers of animals at risk, and available facility resources.