Disease control in horses encompasses the strategies and measures implemented to prevent, manage, and eradicate infectious and non-infectious diseases within equine populations. This field involves the study of pathogen transmission, host-pathogen interactions, and the development of effective vaccination and biosecurity protocols. Disease control also includes monitoring and surveillance of equine health to identify outbreaks and implement timely interventions. Key aspects of disease control in horses involve understanding the epidemiology of equine diseases, improving diagnostic techniques, and enhancing treatment options. This page compiles peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore various methodologies, technologies, and practices aimed at controlling diseases in horses, with a focus on improving overall equine health and welfare.
Clayton HM, Trawford AF.A field study was designed to investigate the re-establishment of patent lungworm infections in donkeys following an anthelmintic treatment regime which was effective against Dictyocaulus arnfieldi. In April 1979 faecal samples from 259 donkeys were examined and each animal classified as a negative, low positive or high positive excretor of lungworm larvae. During the summer the control group of 126 donkeys showed an increase in the number of excretors from 80 per cent in April to 91 per cent in October. At the same time there was a rise in the faecal larval output of individual animals so tha...
Miszczak F, Pronost S, Vabret A.Equine arteritis virus (EAV) is the causative agent of equine viral arteritis, a disease observed only in equids. EAV is the prototype of the family Arteriviridæ within the order Nidovirales. EAV is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus with a considerable variation in the genome as observed in other RNA viruses. During natural infections, EAV may cause abortion and persistent subclinical infections in stallions which can shed the virus in the semen for years, or even lifetime. Chronically infected stallions represent the natural reservoir of the virus. They ensure the persi...
Hartung J, Klinckmann G, Adrian U.Dust in horse barns is assumed to contribute to pulmonary disease, it is attempted to reduce the airborne dust by soaking or sprinkling the hay before feeding. Both means cause considerable efforts and increase the relative humidity of the air. This is why a commercial dust-binding agent (Revesto pur) was used in a pilot investigation which was carried out during 2 weeks - one week for control and one week using the agent - in a private horse barn where three horses were regularly stable. The airborne dust was measured by a continuously working instrument. Once a day (7.00 a.m.) the number of ...
Torres BT, Dover RK, Sapora JA, Sandberg GS, Budsberg SC.To document the publication rate of abstracts presented at 10 ACVS conferences and report the time required for publication and level of evidence. Methods: Literature review. Methods: All scientific abstracts published in the ACVS proceedings from 2001 to 2010 were reviewed. The level of evidence of each abstract was evaluated and scored (1-4). Publication information was determined after a broad bibliographic search through multiple online databases. Results: The overall publication rate for ACVS abstracts (n=1,395) was 66% and 11% were published before conference presentation. The majority o...
Clayton HM, Duncan JL, Gilbert GA.Over a period of several years the use of pyrantel embonate in the control of helminth infections on three equine establishments was monitored by the examination of faecal samples collected immediately before each anthelmintic treatment. With a monthly interval between treatments for three years the faecal egg output of the horses remained at a very low level. One one establishment this was maintained when the treatment interval was extended to one-and-a-half months after treating monthly for two years. If a treatment interval of one-and-a-half months was used continuously for a number of year...
Klug E, Sieme H.The equine virus arteritis (EVA) consistently epidemically varying throughout the different breeds of the horse breeding countries is up to now only of lower significance by means of the typical clinical manifestation as well as an abortion causing factor. The susceptibility of the sexual mature stallions against the equine arteritis virus (EAV) causes different infection response which may lead to some restrictions in their use in natural breeding especially in the artificial insemination. In a certain not precisely predictable part of the stallion population EAV infection will cause a transi...
Richa , Grover YP, Charan S.The authors describe a rapid and simple dot immunobinding assay (DIA) for detection and identification of equine herpesvirus-1 antigen in field samples from cases of abortion, stillbirth, perinatal foal mortality and paralysis. The assay employs a nitrocellulose membrane to which antigen is adsorbed as a dot. Antigen is identified as a coloured dot using a procedure based on the principle of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In all, 61 samples were tested by DIA and the test was compared with conventional agar gel immunodiffusion (AGID). With DIA, 44 (72%) samples gave positive result...
Duquesne F, Breuil MF, Hans A, Petry S.The cultural diagnosis of the causal agent of contagious equine metritis (Taylorella equigenitalis) using transport swabs is challenging. Swabs must be placed in Amies charcoal medium, refrigerated during transport, and plated out at the laboratory no later than 48 h after sampling. In this study, the viability of T. equigenitalis strain CIP 79.7T in 11 commercial swab transport systems was initially compared at 1 day and 2 days of storage at ambient (20 ± 3 °C) or refrigerated (5 ± 3 °C) temperature. The four best swab transport systems, systems B, E, F (used as the reference) and K, were...
Vercauteren G, van der Heyden S, Lefère L, Chiers K, Laevens H, Ducatelle R.This report concerns 2 horses that suffered typical clinical signs of atypical myopathy (AM) and equine grass sickness (EGS) concurrently. Clinical details and pathological lesions of the cases are described. EGS and AM are relatively rare diseases and the concurrency of the diseases in the same animals is therefore considered unlikely to be a coincidence. However, it is not suggested that the evidence shows a common aetiology but rather the existence of common predisposing causes.
Garcia P, Perot I, Loup B, Balssa F, Jaubert M, Delcourt V, Dujardin C, Popot MA, Bailly-Chouriberry L.Clodronate is a non-nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate drug approved in equine veterinary medicine. Clodronate is prohibited for use in competition horses; therefore, to set up an appropriate control, detection times and screening limits are required. The quantitative method in plasma consisted of addition of chloromethylene diphosphonic acid as internal standard. Automated sample preparation comprised a solid phase extraction with weak anion exchange properties on microplate. After methylation of the residue with trimethyl orthoacetate, analysis was conducted by high-performance liquid chroma...
Gehlen H, Rutenberg D, Simon C, Reinhold-Fritzen B, Drozdzewska K.The aim of this review is to describe general guidelines of hygiene measures in the horse stable as well as to provide current recommendations for an outbreak of a common infectious disease. General cleanliness, hand hygiene, avoidance of stress, regular deworming, and vaccinations belong to the basic hygiene measures in a horse herd. All new or returning equids should be submitted to a quarantine period as an important prevention measure. Repeated washing and disinfection of hands may prevent spreading of infectious agents to people and horses.The conception of a hygiene plan, including gener...
More S, Bøtner A, Butterworth A, Calistri P, Depner K, Edwards S, Garin-Bastuji B, Good M, Gortázar Schmidt C, Michel V, Miranda MA, Nielsen SS....Equine encephalomyelitis (Eastern and Western) has been assessed according to the criteria of the Animal Health Law (AHL), in particular criteria of Article 7 on disease profile and impacts, Article 5 on the eligibility of equine encephalomyelitis (Eastern and Western) to be listed, Article 9 for the categorisation of equine encephalomyelitis (Eastern and Western) according to disease prevention and control rules as in Annex IV, and Article 8 on the list of animal species related to equine encephalomyelitis (Eastern and Western). The assessment has been performed following a methodology compos...
Cardenas NC, Sanchez F, Lopes FPN, Machado G.Most animal disease surveillance systems concentrate efforts in blocking transmission pathways and tracing back infected contacts while not considering the risk of transporting animals into areas with elevated disease risk. Here, we use a suite of spatial statistics and social network analysis to characterize animal movement among areas with an estimated distinct risk of disease circulation to ultimately enhance surveillance activities. Our model utilized equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) outbreaks, between-farm horse movements, and spatial landscape data from 2015 through 2017. We related...
Gowen RR, Lengel JG.The control of drug use in performance horses and the policing of rules and regulations to prevent unauthorized drug use are important tasks for agencies overseeing equestrian events. This article describes the roles of the American Horse Shows Association, the Federation Equestre Internationale, and the Association of Racing Commissioners International, Inc, in the policing of drug use in horses competing in events under their control.
Popot MA, Donval A, Bonnaire Y, Huau J.Feces are a possible medium to be used for horse doping control. Efficient methods for detecting drugs in feces collected from various animals are routinely applied in institutes of food safety in Belgium. We have already tested whether they are applicable to horse feces. In this report, accelerated solvent extraction (ASE), an efficient method for extracting compounds from solid material, has been tested. ASE has been used to replace the diethyl ether liquid-liquid extraction step present in the method initially set up. This technique has been optimized for detecting several non-steroidal ant...
Pinetre J, Delcourt V, Becher F, Garcia P, Barnabé A, Loup B, Popot MA, Fenaille F, Bailly-Chouriberry L.Many innovative biotherapeutics have been marketed in the last decade. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and Fc-fusion proteins (Fc-proteins) have been developed for the treatment of diverse diseases (cancer, autoimmune diseases, and inflammatory disorders) and now represent an important part of targeted therapies. However, the ready availability of such biomolecules, sometimes characterized by their anabolic, anti-inflammatory, or erythropoiesis-stimulating properties, raises concerns about their potential misuse as performance enhancers for human and animal athletes. In equine doping control labo...
Niwa H, Anzai T, Hobo S.Contagious equine metritis (CEM) is a highly contagious bacterial venereal disease of horses caused by Taylorella equigenitalis. CEM-PCR is a semi-nested PCR method for detecting this bacterium. Although this technique is regarded as a sensitive diagnostic method for CEM, there are risks of it generating false positive and false negative results. In this study, we constructed a recombinant plasmid (CEM-POS) as reaction control to assure adequate PCR reaction and prevent false positive results caused by contamination of the reaction control in routine CEM-PCR examinations. CEM-POS was construct...
Zhu ZY, Lin YZ, Wang YH, Zhao LP, Zhu YM, Zhou JH.To disclose the potential roles of humoral immune response in the EIAV vaccine-induced protective immunity. In this study, major parameters of humoral immunity be compared between horses inoculated with the EIAV vaccine strain and the pathogenic virulent strain. Methods: Experimental horses were randomly assigned into the group inoculated with the vaccine strain EIAV(DLV); (the vaccinated group) and the group inoculated with sub-morbigenous dose of virulent strain EIAV(Liao); (the inapparent infection group). Humoral immunity parameters, including binding endpoint titer and avidity index of an...
Lotstra RJ, van den Broek J, Power T, Marr CM, Wijnberg ID.Atrial fibrillation is a common equine arrhythmia. Quinidine alone, or with digoxin are common treatments. Studies on outcome in Warmblood populations in which duration of the AF is often unknown are limited. Objective: To identify the factors that are associated with the success of full treatment cardioversion with oral medication, and establish whether there are differences in these factors between institutions. Methods: Retrospective case series using patient records of Equine University Clinic of Utrecht University and Rossdales Equine Hospital, Newmarket. Methods: Forty-nine horses treate...
Qin H, Xiao J, Gao X, Wang H.In contrast to the rapid development of the horse husbandry in China, the ability of horse veterinarians to diagnose diseases has not been improved and only a few domain experts have considerable expertise. At present, many expert systems have been developed for diseases diagnosis, but few for horse diseases diagnosis have been studied in depth. This paper presents the design and development of a computer-aided expert system for diagnosing horse diseases. We suggest an approach for diagnosis of horse diseases based on the analysis of diagnostic characteristics and the experiential knowledge of...
Millar BC, Moore JE.Steam disinfection has become established as a trusted method of microbial decontamination; however, there have been no reports on the use of this technology to disinfect equipment used in collection of semen in artificial insemination practice. Hence, it was the aim of this study to examine the survival of Taylorella asinigenitalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Klebsiella pneumoniae venereal bacterial pathogens using domestic steam disinfection. Sixteen bacterial pathogens from three genera Taylorella, Pseudomonas, and Klebsiella each at an inoculum density of approximately 1.5 × 107 colony-...
Mashin VV, Sergeev AN, Martynova NN, Oganov MD, Sergeev AA, Kataeva VV, Zagidullin NV.Equine blood plasma/serum and intermediates must be monitored for the presence of live viruses pathogenic in humans during production of equine immunoglobulins. Information concerning low-cost and simple methods for the detection of live horse viruses pathogenic and non-pathogenic to humans was gained using data of modern domestic and foreign literature. These methods are based on cultivation of these viruses on sensitive biosystems. The presented information can be used to set up blood plasma/serum control of horses at different stages of immunoglobulin production, i.e., when taking blood fro...
Appolonova SA, Baranov PA, Mesonzhnik NV, Brazhnikova DO, Rodchenkov GM.A method is described for the determination of mesocarb abuse in equestrian sport by combining gradient liquid chromatography and electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. Mesocarb was administrated orally to two horses at a dose of 50 µg/kg. Urine samples were collected up to 120 h post administration. Hydrolyzed and conjugated urine fractions were handled using liquid-liquid extraction (LLE). The identity of the parent drug and metabolites was confirmed using liquid chromatography combined with tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Mesocarb and seven metabolites were detected in horse...
Tamin A, Rota PA.Hendra virus (HeV) and Nipah virus (NiV) are the causative agents of emerging transboundary animal disease in pigs and horses. They also cause fatal disease in humans. NiV has a case fatality rate of 40 - 100%. In the initial NiV outbreak in Malaysia in 1999, about 1.1 million pigs had to be culled. The economic impact was estimated to be approximately US$450 million. Worldwide, HeV has caused more than 60 deaths in horses with 7 human cases and 4 deaths. Since the initial outbreak, HeV spillovers from Pteropus bats to horses and humans continue. This article presents a brief review on the cur...
Charleston W, McKenna P.Abstract A general review of the epidemiology, significance and control of nematode parasitism of sheep, goats, cattle and deer in New Zealand, the emergence of anthelmintic resistance and its effects, and the search for parasite control strategies that reduce reliance on anthelmintic use, is provided. The research that has formed the basis for present levels of understanding of this complex and important topic is summarised and sources of further information are indicated. Aspects of nematode infections of horses, pigs, dogs and cats, and the history of the liver fluke, Fasciola hepatica, in ...
Leary AJ, Kuenzi AJ, Douglass RJ.We examined the effects of grazing on deer mouse () movements into buildings using passive integrated transponder (PIT) technology and small simulated buildings located on 0.6-ha treatment (grazing) and control (no grazing) plots. Twelve experimental 9-day trials were conducted over the course of the study. During these trials, mouse movements into buildings were monitored during three time periods (each 3 days in length). In the treatment plots these time periods corresponded to pre-grazing, grazing, and post grazing by horses. The number of individual deer mice entering buildings over time d...
Powers JD, Powers TE, Varma KJ, Gabel AA, Spurlock SL.Quantification of the clinical manifestations of a disease has been a serious problem particularly as related to clinical trials or drug efficacy studies. Historically, this quantification has been limited to categorizing each patient into one of three or four groups, e.g. worse, no improvement, improved. This problem becomes serious when an investigation utilizes an experimentally induced animal disease model. A health index, which quantifies the clinical state of horses which have an experimentally induced beta-hemolytic streptococcal infection, is described. Aspects of experimental design a...
Lány P, Pospísil Z, Zendulková D, Cíhal P, Jahn P.A mild outbreak of acute respiratory infection was reported in racing horses in the fall of 1995. Four studs were investigated for the sources and routes of infection. In five horses from two herds, virus isolates were obtained which, in preliminary typing experiments, were identified as the influenza A/equi 2 virus. The presence of this illness in all the examined herds was confirmed by a rise in specific antibody titres. The affected animals included both older vaccinated horses and young horses not yet vaccinated. Epidemiological studies suggested that the spread of infection occurred in si...
Vitour D, Zientara S, Fablet A, Bréard E, Sailleau C.African horse sickness (AHS) is a major arthropod-borne disease that causes significant losses in horses in sub-Saharan Africa. It is caused by the African horse sickness virus (AHSV), which is transmitted during a blood meal by Culicoides biting midges. The distribution of historical African culicoid vectors increases due to global warming. In addition, recent (Thailand, 2020) and earlier (Iberian Peninsula, 1965-66/1987-90) AHS outbreaks outside Africa demonstrate the adaptation of the virus to endogenous species in AHS-free regions, similar to what has been observed for bluetongue disease i...
Fellmer E.Veterinary examinations of horses on the occasion of sale or purchase take place on the basis of contracts for work and services. Three types may be distinguished: Examinations for sale (by order of the seller before the sales contract is concluded) Guarantee examination (by order of the buyer after conclusion of the sales contract) (Real) purchase examination (under a conditional contract of purchase). In the latter case the veterinarian acts as trustee for both seller and buyer and is equally obliged to both parties morally and at law. The deficiencies of the law of warranties for contracts ...
