The Fish and Wildlife Service Aquatic Animal Health Program (FWS-AAHP), in partnership with the American Fisheries Society Fish Health Section (AFS-FHS) performs annual revisions of the Standard Procedures for Aquatic Animal Health Inspections to ensure methodologies are current and effective in determining the disease status of fish populations.

Similarly, the FWS Fish Health Center specialists review and update the National Wild Fish Health Survey Manual annually to incorporate new techniques with improved sensitivity for detecting fish pathogens in wild fish populations. The FWS-AAHP is committed to excellence in science, and often conducts Quality Improvement Studies to ensure current fish pathogen detection methods, and newly developing techniques, meet high standards. Often new literature and technologies suggest changes in sampling procedures, reagents, or assay protocols will provide improved detection of fish pathogens. Fish health specialists conduct comparative studies to ensure that proposed changes to current methodologies will produce accurate and consistent laboratory test results. Many of the FWS Fish Health Centers also conduct applied research to address specific health issues at local hatcheries, or regional information needs for restoration programs.

Completed Quality Improvement Studies
Several studies have been completed in the past few years to address disease sampling techniques, improve reagent reference material, and to validate new technologies such as quantitative PCR. Two studies are currently underway to improve sampling and testing efficiency while maintaining sensitivity.