Abstract
This paper reports the results of a general survey, the first in the United Kingdom, carried out on accredited breeding colonies of mice, rats and guinea-pigs over a period of a year. While the results show the potential usefulness of a viral accreditation grading scheme, they also show that contamination of breeding colonies with inapparent viral infections is widespread. This situation can only be improved by the continuous monitoring of animal stocks for rodent viruses, with the aim of improving the standard of animals available for research and for pharmacological, toxicological and routine diagnostic procedures.