Using shoe covers or other means to prevent floor contamination in animal research facilities can be costly, and the relative efficacy of these practices remains unknown. Allen and colleagues collected bacterial culture samples from occupied rodent holding rooms under three conditions: use of disinfectant mats; use of shoe covers; and no disinfectant mats or shoe covers. When either disinfectant mats or shoe covers were used, the mean number of colony-forming units collected was significantly lower than when neither was used. This suggests that using one of these preventative measures may reduce floor contamination of rodent holding rooms. See
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It can be challenging to provide consistent training to the many rodent handlers working in large, decentralized research institutions. Heenan describes a program developed at her university to provide these personnel with more uniform training. In this program, every Principal Investigator with an active animal use application appoints a Laboratory Animal Coordinator who becomes responsible for coordinating the animal activities in the laboratory and for training other lab workers in proper rodent handling. Heenan's institution has used the program to successfully train thousands of animal users. See
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