Disease prevention in horses encompasses strategies and practices aimed at minimizing the occurrence and spread of infectious and non-infectious diseases within equine populations. These practices include vaccination programs, biosecurity measures, and regular health monitoring. Vaccination helps to stimulate the horse's immune system to protect against specific pathogens, while biosecurity measures, such as quarantine and sanitation, reduce the risk of disease transmission. Regular health monitoring, including physical examinations and diagnostic testing, aids in early detection and management of potential health issues. This page compiles peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore various methods and their effectiveness in preventing diseases in horses, as well as the development and implementation of prevention programs in different equine settings.
Journal of biochemistryNovember 1, 1963
Volume 54 388-397 doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.jbchem.a127804
JOHKE T.This research article investigates the differences in acid-soluble nucleotides in the milk of various species including cows, goats, mares, and humans through different stages of lactation, and compares the nucleotide […]
TURK RD, UECKERT BW, BELL RR.No signs of intoxication were seen in horses dosed with thiabendazole at either 200 mg. or 400 mg. per kg. body-weight. 17 horses were dosed with the drug at a level of 100 mg. per kg. These horses had a mean egg count of 1, 296 e.p.g. before treatment; all were negative for strongyle eggs by the 7th day after treatment. 3 of these horses were killed and few or no strongyles were found; an untreated control animal killed at the same time had many thousands of strongyle worms. Thiabendazole was effective when given either by stomach tube or when mixed in the feed.
Science (New York, N.Y.)August 25, 1961
Volume 134, Issue 3478 565-566 doi: 10.1126/science.134.3478.565
LOWENTHAL JP, BERMAN S, GROGAN EW.Protection tests in guinea pigs indicate that vaccines prepared from virus propagated in chick embryo cell cultures are as effective as the purified whole chick embryo vaccines which are currently used for human immunization against eastern equine encephalomyelitis.
WHITE PG, APPLETON GS.The study focused on immunizing horses with botulinum toxoid, which demonstrated that two doses produced better antitoxin responses than single doses, indicating potential for effective immunization against botulism in horses. […]
Hall-Bromley A, Dixon L.Horse welfare is a subject of ongoing discussion and scientific investigation. Several solutions to combat poor horse welfare have been suggested by existing research; however, each of these has its limitations. In 2022, it was announced that France was introducing new legislation requiring all horse owners to be licensed on completion of particular horse-care education. This development raises an interesting discussion about whether such a framework could be applied in the UK. This systemised literature review analysed the prevalence of horse welfare concerns in the developed world and the UK...
Kamutzki CJ, Emmerich IU.In 2024, there was no release of a novel pharmaceutical agent for horses and food-producing animals or an extension of existing active ingredients to other animal species on the German veterinary medicinal products market. Formic acid is now available for a new form of treatment, the short-term treatment of honeybees, and clenbuterol is available in a new dosage form, as an oral solution for horses. In the field of immunological veterinary medicinal products, three new vaccines were launched on the German veterinary medicinal products market. For the first time, a vaccine against in cattle, a...
Liu D, Zhao X, Wang X.Equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1), EHV-4, EHV-8, and EHV-9, are classified within the subfamily and are recognized as causative agents of respiratory, urogenital, and neurological disorders in horses. These viruses, collectively referred to as αEHVs, exhibits both unique and shared characteristics in terms of host interaction, pathogenesis, epidemiology, and immune evasion, which arise from both the identities and discrepancies among respective genomic homologs. The genomic architecture of αEHVs is similar to other members of the same subfamily, such as well-known HSV-1, VZV, and PRV. However, r...
Kukhar Y, Bailina G, Smagulova A, Uakhit R, Kiyan V.Equine skin mycoses are a significant concern in Kazakhstan's livestock industry due to the country's historical livestock farming practices, the development of equestrian sports, and food traditions. Skin infections are among the most common fungal infections in horses. Emerging pathogens of equine dermatophytosis include keratinophilic Chrysosporium spp., which can degrade and metabolize keratin found in superficial tissues. This, combined with their thermotolerance, contributes to their pathogenicity. In this study, we investigated the biological properties and pathogenicity of two Chrysosp...
Cullinane A, Garvey M, Dayot L, Lukaseviciute G.Equine rotavirus A (RVA) is a major cause of debilitating diarrhoea in neonatal foals globally. The aim of this study was to characterise RVA viruses currently circulating in Ireland and to identify risk factors associated with disease outbreaks. Of the 377 samples submitted during 2023 and 2024, 48 foals from 36 outbreaks were confirmed to be RVA-positive by real-time PCR. The viruses detected were genotyped by VP7 and VP4 gene sequencing. In 2024, the attending veterinary surgeon was contacted, and epidemiological data were collected. These included the vaccination status of the foal's dam a...
Gao X, Liu J, Xu K, Hu J, Xiao C, Wang D, Li C, Ji C, Yao X, Wang PG, Jing Y, He Y, Shen CK.Typically, the antigen-specific antibodies constitute a small fraction-often estimated to be around 2-10 %-of the total IgG in the serum after immunization. This low percentage necessitates the use of purification techniques to enrich the antigen-specific antibodies for therapeutic or research purposes. This study introduces an affinity chromatography column using NHS-activated Sepharose as a matrix and the tetanus toxin subunit C, TeNT-Hc-C869A, as a ligand, enabling the purification of polyclonal antibodies with high specificity. This process improves antitoxin purity to over 95 %, effecti...
Chambers A.All anti-doping programmes face financial constraints and monitoring trends in medication use or abuse in a population of racehorses can be difficult and expensive. Obtaining biological samples is the primary method of anti-doping control in individual horses or stables of horses but can be invasive and expensive. Another important practice of anti-doping control has been the confiscation of used and filled syringes by regulators for individual forensic analysis. Pooled samples testing involves the testing of multiple individual samples together as one composite sample. This pooled sample appr...
Aleman M, McCue M, Bellone RR.Fatal anesthesia-induced malignant hyperthermia (MH) and rhabdomyolysis with hyperthermia documented in Quarter Horses (QH) breeds are caused by a missense variant in the ryanodine receptor 1 gene (RYR1: XP_023505430.1.:p.(R2454G), designated as MH). The reported cases to date have all been heterozygous, and the allele frequency is suspected to be low. Objective: To determine an accurate estimate of MH allele frequency in multiple horse breeds and investigate whether homozygous animals exist in the population. Methods: In total, 159 227 horses from 16 breeds who were either submitted for cli...
Asti V, Summer A, Ablondi M, Sartori C, Giontella A, Pilastro V, Mecocci S, Cappelli K, Mancin E, Oian A, Mantovani R, Capomaccio S, Sabbioni A.Horses have undergone extensive natural and artificial selection, shaping the diversity of breeds observed today. Native Italian breeds present unique traits influenced by natural selection, such as adaptation to harsh climates, or hoof strength, but face challenges due to population declines and the reduction of their original breeding purpose. This study focuses on five local Italian breeds: Bardigiano, Haflinger, Maremmano, Murgese, and Italian Heavy Draught Horse, to understand how selection has shaped their populations. A total of 1620 individuals were genotyped with a medium-density SNP ...
Taylor WTT.Many of the most important equine health problems - and their solutions - relate to the role of horses as a domestic animal, especially in riding and other kinds of transport. Recently, new discoveries from the archaeological sciences have rewritten our understanding of early horse domestication, suggesting that the first ancestors of domestic horses emerged in the Black Sea Steppes of western Eurasia at the turn of the second millennium BCE. This new chronology places horse domestication within a wider trajectory of early animal transport, including cattle and donkey, across western Asia and ...
Stuart RB, Miles-Farrier F, Bard AM, Rees G.Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an increasingly serious threat to human and animal health. Antimicrobial use (AMU) in horses is gathering research interest, although there remain significant evidence gaps. Currently, there is scant qualitative research into equine owners' use of antimicrobials, specifically antibiotics, hindering the design of evidence-based stewardship interventions and policies. Objective: To understand Welsh equine owners' views and behaviours relating to antimicrobial usage. Methods: Cross sectional survey and qualitative data collection and analysis. Methods: An online ...
da Silveira BP, Kahn SK, Legere RM, Bray JM, Cole-Pfeiffer HM, Golding MC, Cohen ND, Bordin AI.Using a horse foal model, we show that enteral immunization of newborn foals with Rhodococcus equi overcomes neonatal vaccination challenges by reprogramming innate immune responses, inducing R. equi-specific adaptive humoral and cell-mediated immune responses and protecting foals against experimental pneumonia challenge. Foals were immunized twice via gavage of R. equi (immunized group) or saline (control group) at ages 1 and 3 days. At age 28 days, all foals were challenged intrabronchially with R. equi. Post-challenge, all 5 immunized foals remained healthy, whereas 67% (4/6) of control foa...
Bianchi D, Santos RRD, Peleja PL, de Sousa ABB, da Silva Evangelista M, de Almeida Júnior JS, Barata LES, Moraes WP, Minervino AHH. (tropical horse tick) is a tick species commonly found parasitizing horses and other equids in the Amazon region, causing economic losses. Currently, tick control is based on chemical acaricides, usually in a power formulation for topical use. However, its indiscriminate use results in the emergence of resistant tick lineages. Several plant compounds have been tested for their acaricide activity. In the Amazon, several plants are used for oil extraction, resulting in the production of solid residue (waste) that may contain chemical molecules with biological activities. Thus, we aimed to test ...
Pusterla N, Lawton K, Barnum S, Flynn K, Hankin S, Runk D, Mendonsa E, Doherty T.The present study reports on the management of an EHV-1 outbreak at a large, multi-week equestrian event with ongoing showing. Within a 48 h period, 8 horses out of a cohort of 38 horses from the same trainer displayed elevated rectal temperatures ranging from 38.4 to 39.0 °C. Initial testing using a point-of-care PCR assay detected EHV-1 in 2/8 horses, with the results being confirmed at a later time by qPCR. As a precautionary measure and because of the inability to isolate the entire at-risk population, the 38 horses were relocated to an equine facility outside the equestrian event for dai...
Araújo IRDS, de Brito EL, de Melo UP, Mariz ALB, Cavalheiro MT, Ferreira C, de Morais LF, de Souza RF.This study aimed to evaluate the use of antimicrobials in horses, focusing on administration practices, adherence to veterinary prescriptions, and the impact on the development of antimicrobial resistance. The research was based on a questionnaire completed by 220 horse owners in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The data collected covered aspects including antibiotic use, prescription sources, the performance of culture and susceptibility tests, and the disposal of veterinary drug waste. The results indicated that 98.63% of horse owners administered antibiotics mainly to treat respira...
Matté YA, Baldasso DZ, Rezende MA, Lui JFM, Seibel AC, Guizzo JA, Frandoloso R, Kreutz LC.Lawsonia intracellularis is an obligatory intracellular bacterium associated with equine proliferative enteropathy (EPE), which significantly impacts equine health. Despite its clinical relevance, epidemiological and diagnostic approaches for this infection in horses have remained underexplored. This study aimed to evaluate the humoral immune response in horses immunized with an experimental vaccine for L. intracellularis and to determine the occurrence of anti-L. intracellularis antibodies in horses from southern Brazil using the flow cytometry antibody test (FCAT). Unassigned: A total of 12 ...
Donovan K, Torres J, Zhu D, Herrington WG, Staplin N.Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of disease progression are vulnerable to collider bias caused by selection of participants with disease at study entry. This bias introduces spurious associations between disease progression and genetic variants that are truly only associated with disease incidence. Methods of statistical adjustment to reduce this bias have been published, but rely on assumptions regarding the genetic correlation of disease incidence and disease progression which are likely to be violated in many human diseases. MR-Horse is a recently published Bayesian method to estimate...
Gamage C, Holl W, Parreño V, Thieulent CJ, Balasuriya UBR, Vissani MA, Barrandeguy ME, Carossino M.Group A rotavirus (RVA) infections are a leading cause of neonatal diarrhoea in foals. Neonatal mice could serve as a useful tool to study the pathogenesis of equine RVA (ERVA) as well as a preclinical model for assessment of vaccine efficacy. This study aimed to comparatively evaluate the clinical, virological and pathological features of ERVA G3P[12] and G14P[12] infection in neonatal mice and compare them with porcine OSU G5P[7] and bovine UK G6P[5] RVA reference strains. Neonatal mice orally inoculated with equine, bovine and porcine RVA developed short-lived diarrhoea at variable rates, G...
Atay YE, Ekinci G, Öztürk AE, Timur MC, Mete A, Altınbay K, Derelli FM, Akar Y, Keleş İ.Equine Coital Exanthema (ECE) is an endemic herpesvirus disease primarily affecting the external genitalia and impairing mating activities in horses. Its extremely contagious nature, latency and subclinical features can result in outbreaks and significant economic losses. Transmission occurs primarily through mating activities; therefore, robust biosecurity measures are crucial in breeding facilities. This study aims to determine the clinical prevalence of ECE among horses in a covering station in Türkiye from 2021 to 2024. It also aims to assess the efficacy of routine PCR implementation wit...
Turcotte GK, O'Sullivan TL, Spence KL, Winder CB, Greer AL.Horses may travel for a variety of reasons, leading to potential exposure to pathogens. Typically, these movements are bidirectional with horses returning to their home facility, therefore also risking pathogen exposure to resident horses at home facilities. The Canadian National Farm and Facility Level Biosecurity Standard for the Equine Sector was designed to outline best practices for managing biosecurity at equestrian facilities, however, there is a gap between the implementation of these recommendations and the day-to-day operations of equestrian facilities. This study aimed to explore th...
Ablondi M, Eriksson S, Mikko S.Fragile foal syndrome (FFS) is a disease caused by a recessive lethal missense mutation in the PLOD1 gene located on ECA2. Despite its harmful effect, a relatively high frequency of FFS carriers was observed in Warmblood breeds spanning from 7.4% in a random sample of Swedish Warmblood breed to 17% in the Hanoverian and Danish Warmblood, indicating potential heterozygous advantage. Balancing selection can be further studied based on haplotype blocks and via detection of heterozygosity-rich region (ROHet) around the target of selection. In this study we evaluated the presence of haplotype block...
Tually P, Currie G.The horse racing industry, like any sport, must contend with the effects of injuries on an athlete's performance and longevity. Catastrophic fractures linked to preexisting bone fatigue can be prevented with the use of imaging technology, such as the nuclear medicine bone scan. The accessibility and affordability of imaging for racehorses remain obstacles. The conventional role of bone scintigraphy has evolved with the advent of advanced techniques, including MRI, CT, and PET. Concurrently, SPECT has expanded the role of scintigraphy in the racehorse. This article explores the conventional and...
Kutumbetov L, Myrzakhmetova B, Tussipova A, Zhapparova G, Tlenchiyeva T, Bissenbayeva K, Nurabayev S, Kerimbayev A.Equine rhinopneumonia, caused by equine herpesvirus types 1 and 4 (EHV-1 and EHV-4), continues to be a significant health and economic concern in the global equine industry, particularly in Kazakhstan. While vaccines targeting EHV-1 are available, there is currently no licensed monovalent vaccine for EHV-4, and existing formulations offer limited protection against this serotype. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a freeze-dried, live-attenuated EHV-4 vaccine with improved safety, stability, and immunogenicity. Methods: A field isolate of EHV-4 was attenuated through serial passaging in ...
Clarysse M, Bertier P, Verpaele S, Madsen AM, Vlaminck L.Equine dental disorders, such as sharp enamel points and focal overgrowths, are common in horses and are often treated with motorized dental grinding tools. These tools, while effective, produce dust and aerosols that may pose health risks to veterinarians and nearby individuals. This study aimed to assess the health risks associated with dental dust and aerosols generated during equine odontoplasty. Using a realistic setup, air concentrations of inhalable and respirable dust, crystalline silica, and airborne microorganisms and endotoxins were measured in 12 groups of horses undergoing odontop...
Akinniyi OO, Lawal TR, Rufai N, Jolayemi KO, Amaje J.African horse sickness (AHS) is endemic in Nigeria. Despite this, little is known about the perspective of horse handlers in Nigeria regarding AHS. The study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions (KAP) of horse handlers in Southwest Nigeria regarding AHS. A cross-sectional survey study was conducted, which involved convenient sampling of 131 horse handlers in Lagos and Oyo States by February - April 2024. The pre-validated questionnaires were administered via face-to-face interviews, covering demographics, knowledge of AHS transmission, clinical signs, prevention and cont...
Hoxha I, Xhekaj B, Muja-Bajraktari N, Sekulin K, Unterköfler MS, Schlamadinger L, Situmorang T, Fuehrer HP, Obwaller AG, Camp JV, Walochnik J....West Nile virus (WNV, family Flaviviridae) is the most geographically widespread arbovirus affecting humans. It circulates between wild birds and mosquitoes, while humans and horses are dead-end hosts. In recent years, several outbreaks have been reported from European countries, including the Balkan Peninsula. In the Republic of Kosovo, a southern Balkan country, data on WNV are scarce, and neither mosquito monitoring nor WNV surveillance is established. To address this gap, we aimed to assess a first monitoring approach that should set the basis and support future large-scale activities in t...
Arshad A, Reif AH, Cavalleri JV, Desvars-Larrive A.Equids serve diverse roles in contemporary society. Their use as companion animals, in sports, transportation, and food production brings them into close contact with humans, creating potential zoonotic risks. This review had two objectives: (i) to catalogue zoonotic pathogens detected in equids across Central Europe, and (ii) to analyse research trends and collaborations in equid zoonosis studies within the region. We conducted a systematic literature search following PRISMA guidelines to identify publications on naturally occurring zoonotic pathogens in equids from nine countries: Austria, t...
Souto EPF, Dantas VW, Oliveira AM, Garcia DS, Vilela VLR, Neto EGM, Mota RA, Dantas AFM.Strongylus vulgaris remains a significant cause of disease in equids, especially in regions with insufficient deworming practices. Objective: To describe the epidemiological, clinical, pathological, and parasitological findings of vascular and extravascular lesions associated with S. vulgaris in equids. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on necropsy reports from equids examined at the Animal Pathology Laboratory, Federal University of Campina Grande (2000-2024), targeting cases of vascular lesions associated with S. vulgaris. Epidemiological, clinical, and pathological findings we...
Batterham R, Allen K, Dickson J, Warman S, Parkin T.To ensure veterinary students are prepared for clinical practice, curricula must provide opportunities for students to learn about the cases most frequently seen in practice. Currently, there is a gap in the literature with regard to the identification of common clinical topics encountered in equine primary care practice in the UK. This study aims to address this gap by utilizing text-mining techniques on electronic medical records (EMRs) to produce a ranked list of the most common clinical topics encountered in equine primary care in the UK. The study included 1,092,731 rows of data from 150,...
Golen GS, Erganiş O, Balevi A. is an important bacterial pathogen and causes severe chronic granulomatous pneumonia in foals below 6 months of age. It has also become an opportunistic and emerging pathogen in immunocompromised humans. Vaccination is the most cost-effective strategy for controlling and preventing this infection. Although several potential virulence genes and candidate immunogens have been identified over the years, no effective vaccine is currently available to prevent disease in horses. Recently, bacterial vector vaccines have been shown to be promising for In this study, the gene of was cloned into P...
