The Atlantic Veterinary College laboratory could find its international credentials suspended because of a complaint filed by another country over research into a potentially lethal salmon virus.
The World Organization for Animal Health, known as the OIE, designates the Prince Edward Island facility as one of only two international reference laboratories focusing on infectious salmon anaemia.
The lab and the efforts of researcher Fred Kibenge received national attention after his work on samples from B.C. sockeye salmon was later challenged by the federal government.
Kibenge's research showed the presence of the virus that can be devastating to farm fish and has never been detected in British Columbian waters before.
Guy Gravelle, a spokesman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said in an email Friday that an OIE member country had become concerned because the facility's work on samples from that country were not consistent with findings from other researchers.
He wouldn't name the country.
Don Reynolds, dean of the veterinary college, said the OIE then audited the lab this past August.
"We have that report," he said. "And there is a recommendation that says that until certain things are straightened out, so to speak, the OIE designation will be suspended and put into abeyance."
Reynolds didn't elaborate on what needs to be "straightened out," but added the recommendation must go to the OIE director who'll make a decision on the lab's designation.
"We're waiting here. We don't know when that will happen."
Reynolds said the college doesn't believe the recommendation has anything to do with Kibenge's testimony at the Cohen Commission, the federal inquiry examining the decline of Fraser River sockeye returns, or his work on the virus in British Columbia.
"We don't feel that way," he said. "We feel it's the result of the OIE audit."
