Disease surveillance in horses involves the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of health data to monitor and manage equine diseases. This process aids in the early detection of outbreaks, tracking of disease trends, and evaluation of control measures. Surveillance systems may incorporate various data sources, including clinical reports, laboratory testing, and field observations. These systems can focus on infectious diseases, such as equine influenza and West Nile virus, or non-infectious conditions affecting horse populations. This page compiles peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore methodologies, technologies, and outcomes associated with disease surveillance in equine populations.
de la Rúa-Domènech R, Mohammed HO, Atwill ER, Cummings JF, Divers TJ, Summers BA, deLahunta A, Jackson C.To examine the regional variations in the distribution of equine motor neuron disease (EMND) in the United States and the factors that might explain those variations. Methods: Cluster investigation and case-control study. Methods: The study population consisted of 97 horses with histopathologically confirmed EMND and 698 controls with diagnosis of other spinal cord disorders at 21 US veterinary teaching hospitals participating in the Veterinary Medical Data Base. Methods: The total horse population of the United States was divided into 21 regions, and the regional incidence rates of EMND from ...
An outbreak of Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) that began in northwestern Venezuela in April 1995 has spread westward to the Guajira peninsula and to Colombia (Figure 1), resulting in an estimated minimum of 13,000 cases in humans and an undetermined number of equine deaths. Governments of both countries have initiated efforts to control the spread of this outbreak by quarantining and vaccinating equines and applying insecticides. This report summarizes the ongoing investigation of the outbreak in Colombia.
Monzón CM, Jara A, Nantulya VM.The sensitivity of an antigen detection enzyme immunoassay (Ag-ELISA) based on a Trypanosoma brucei group-specific monoclonal antibody was evaluated to detect circulating Trypanosoma evansi antigen in horse sera. Three horses and 2 mules were experimentally infected with T. evansi. Circulating antigens were detected on 7 and 21 days postinfection. Antigen levels increased during the course of the illness and remained high even when parasitemia was low or when parasites could not be detected. Antigens were cleared from serum when drug treatment was effective but persisted when it was not. In 6 ...
Höglund J, Ljungström BL, Nilsson O, Uggla A.A scolex antigen of the horse tapeworm Anoplocephala perfoliata containing at least 14 different proteins was employed in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of antibodies to A. perfoliata in equine sera. The assay was applied to sera from 426 slaughtered horses with different numbers of worms and with varying degrees of intestinal lesions. As measured by the ELISA, there was a very strong effect on the antibody levels both from the number of tapeworms present and from the intestinal lesion score. However, considerable individual variation was observed between horses wit...
Rico-Hesse R, Weaver SC, de Siger J, Medina G, Salas RA.One of the most important questions in arbovirology concerns the origin of epidemic Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) viruses; these viruses caused periodic, extensive epidemics/epizootics in the Americas from 1938-1973 (reaching the United States in 1971) but had recently been presumed extinct. We have documented the 1992 emergence of a new epidemic/epizootic VEE virus in Venezuela. Phylogenetic analysis of strains isolated during two outbreaks indicated that the new epidemic/epizootic virus(es) evolved recently from an enzootic VEE virus in northern South America. These results suggest co...
Davis EO, Curran GE, Hetherington WT, Norris DA, Wise GA, Roth IJ, SeaWright AA, Bryden WL.Flood plain staggers, a corynetoxicosis of grazing livestock, occurred on flood plains of the Darling river in northern New South Wales between spring 1990 and autumn 1991, associated with the grazing of Agrostis avenacea with diseased inflorescences. Over this period 1722 cattle, 2466 sheep and 11 horses died on 31 farms. Clinical signs were similar in sheep and cattle, being characterised by intermittent episodes of cerebral convulsion superimposed on varying degrees of cerebellar dysfunction. Pathological changes were variable and non-specific, principally reflecting trauma and the generali...
Wood JL, Chirnside ED, Mumford JA, Higgins AJ.Equine viral arteritis was diagnosed for the first time in the United Kingdom in 1993. The outbreak began on a non-thoroughbred stud in south Nottinghamshire and spread to five other premises through chilled semen used for artificial insemination and from acutely and subclinically infected mares returning home. The outbreak was contained on these six premises by means of voluntary movement restrictions. The most commonly observed clinical signs were typical: pyrexia with depression, and conjunctivitis with periorbital oedema; nasal discharge, and oedema of the distal limbs, prepuce and mammary...
Baba SS, Fagbami AH, Ojeh CK, Olaleye OD, Omilabu SA.Retrospective and prospective serological surveys to determine the prevalence of Wesslsbron (WSL) virus infections in animal populations were carried out in different vegetational zones in Nigeria. Sera from 1,492 animals comprising 292 camels, 81 horses, 4 donkeys, 320 cattle, 235 sheep, 260 goats, 114 pigs, 101 dogs and 85 domestic fowls were assayed by haemagglutination-inhibition (HI) test for presence of antibodies to WSL virus and other flavivirus antigens: Yellow Fever (YF), Potiskum (POT), Banzi (BAN), Uganda S (UGS) and West Nile (WN) viruses. Four hundred and eighty one (32%) of the ...
Pavlásek I, Hess L, Stehlík I, Stika V.The first occurrence of Giardia spp. in horses in the Czech Republic is reported. During preventive examination of 360 five-month up to 14-year horses from various parts of the region of Central Bohemia carried out from January 1993 to June 1994 in the parasitological laboratory of the State Veterinary Institute in Prague, the Giardia cysts were detected in the excrements of 18 (5%) horses, mostly 2-4 years of age, and in two foals 3 and 6 weeks old. During the period between March 1993 and June 1994, systematic and repeated observation was aimed at a group of 38 racing horses two up to four y...
Rieder N, Beelitz P, Gothe R.In this epidemiological survey 30 foals and their mares from seven breeding farms were investigated. Six farms used wide spectrum anthelmintics strategically at least for three years, on one farm no anthelmintic prophylaxis was practiced. Excretion of P.-equorum-eggs occurred in all breeding farms and in 80% of the foals, but in only one mare. In foals infection with roundworms was detected at the earliest 85 days post partum. Before first shedding of P.-equorum-eggs wide spectrum anthelmintics had been administered to two and to one foal(s) one and two times, respectively, to four animals thr...
Adeyefa CA, Hamblin C.Equine sera collected from 10 widely separated regions throughout Nigeria were tested for antibodies against African horse sickness viruses (AHSV) using a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The animals sampled included imported, exotic horses, indigenous and locally cross-bred (local) horses and African donkeys. A high percentage of the sera (79.8%) were positive, confirming the continued prevalence of AHSV antibodies in Nigerian horses and donkeys.
de la Rúa-Doménech R, Mohammed HO, Cummings JF, Divers TJ, de Lahunta A, Valentine B, Summers BA, Jackson CA.We have conducted an ambidirectional study to estimate the incidence of equine motor neuron disease (EMND) in the northeastern US. The clinical and pathological features of EMND are similar to those described in human motor neuron disease. We have also collected data on all EMND cases reported in the US and described the geographic distribution of the disease. To identify factors associated with the risk of EMND, the authors assembled 163 control horses from the population in which cases were identified. The significance of association between the hypothesized factors and the risk of EMND was ...
Singh G.A/eq-1 and A/eq-2 influenza viruses were isolated simultaneously from an epidemic of equine influenza in north India. Evidently, both types of equine influenza viruses circulated in the equine population at the same time.
Donahue JM, Smith BJ, Poonacha KB, Donahoe JK, Rigsby CL.In this study, the prevalence of leptospira-induced abortions/stillbirths for the past 3 foaling seasons (1991-1993) was determined, and fetal tissues and/or the mare's urine from positive cases were cultured in an attempt to isolate and identify the leptospira serovars responsible for the abortions. The sensitivity and specificity of the primary diagnostic tests, the fluorescent antibody test (FAT) and the microscopic agglutination test (MAT), used for the diagnosis of leptospirosis were also determined. For the 3 years, 74 (3.3%) of 2,264 abortion/stillborn submissions were diagnosed as lept...
Sekiguchi K, Sugita S, Fukunaga Y, Kondo T, Wada R, Kamada M, Yamaguchi S.A polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based assay capable of detecting and differentiating seven strains of equine arteritis virus (EAV) from around the world was developed. The primers for the PCR were chosen from the ORF6 gene encoding the unglycosylated membrane protein (M). Viral RNA from cell culture fluids infected with each of the seven EAV strains and RNA from the live vaccine, Arvac, was detected by PCR using four sets of primers. The sensitivity of detection was increased from 100 to 1,000 times by performing nested PCR enabling the detection of RNA at a level of 0.5-5 PFU. Differentiati...
Braverman Y.The biology, veterinary importance and control of certain Nematocera are described and discussed. Culicoides spp. (family Ceratopogonidae) transmit the arboviruses of bluetongue (BT), African horse sickness (AHS), bovine ephemeral fever (BEF) and Akabane. Some other arboviruses have been isolated from these species, while fowl pox has been transmitted experimentally by Culicoides. These insects are vectors of the parasitic protozoans Leucocytozoon caulleryi and Haemoproteus nettionis, and the parasitic nematodes Onchocerca gutturosa, O. gibsoni and O. cervicalis. They also cause recurrent summ...
Kim I, Cohen ND, Carroll RJ.The authors describe a method for assessing and characterizing effect heterogeneity related to a matching covariate in case-control studies, using an example from veterinary medicine. Data are from a case-control study conducted in Texas during 1997-1998 of 498 pairs of horses with colic and their controls. Horses were matched by veterinarian and by month of examination. The number of matched pairs of cases and controls varied by veterinarian. The authors demonstrate that there is effect heterogeneity related to this characteristic (i.e., cluster size of veterinarians) for the association of c...
Doherr MG, Carpenter TE, Wilson WD, Gardner IA.To determine whether horses with Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis infections that were examined at a veterinary medical teaching hospital between July 1, 1992, and June 30, 1994 had patterns of temporal or spatial clustering. Methods: 134 case and 800 control horses randomly selected from all non-case horses admitted during the study period. Methods: Admission date and geographic location were determined. Scan, Cuzick & Edwards', and Knox tests were applied to determine whether case horses had patterns of temporal or spatial clustering. Results: For all windows > or = 3 days (134 case...
Balasuriya UBR.Equine influenza (EI) is a highly contagious disease of horses caused by the equine influenza virus (EIV) H3N8 subtype. EI is the most important respiratory virus infection of horses and can disrupt major equestrian events and cause significant economic losses to the equine industry worldwide. Influenza H3N8 virus spreads rapidly in susceptible horses and can result in very high morbidity within 24-48 h after exposure to the virus. Therefore, rapid and accurate diagnosis of EI is critical for implementation of prevention and control measures to avoid the spread of EIV and to reduce the econom...
De Almeida JC, Augusto Mde M, Da Silva TG, De Toledo PS, De Souza DF, Antunes J, Molento MB.The objective of this work was to determine the quantitative prevalence of Anoplocephala sp. in thoroughbred horses raised in São José dos Pinhais, PR using the modified centrifugal-flotation technique. Repeatability values for the eggs per gram (EPG) were evaluated at 28-day intervals. The coproparasitological tests were made in 28 one-year old animals, 25 two-year old animals and 28 mares during the 2007 period of January 31st and June 15th. In the comparison of EPG, all mares presented low values than the foals (P = 0.04). The prevalence results indicated 50, 18 and 40% Anoplocephala sp. ...
Kirkland PD.During the 2007 equine influenza (EI) outbreak in Australia, diagnostic laboratories and the use of appropriate tests played a pivotal role in the response to the crisis. This role began with the detection of EI virus in New South Wales (NSW) on the evening of 24 August 2007 and culminated in providing the final 'proof of freedom' from EI in March 2008. The tests that were used during the EI response were able to provide results quickly, and with high sensitivity and specificity. This section of the supplement describes the roles and functions of the Australian laboratories; tests used and the...
Kaiser A, Meier HP, Doherr MG, Perler L, Zanoni R, Gerber V.Since 1991, no cases of Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA) have been reported in Switzerland. Risk factors for introduction of the virus into Switzerland are still present or have even increased as frequent inapparent infections, large numbers of imported horses, (since 2003) absence of compulsory testing prior to importation, EIA cases in surrounding Europe, possible illegal importation of horses, frequent short-term stays, poor knowledge of the disease among horse owners and even veterinarians. The aim of this study was to provide evidence of freedom from EIA in imported and domestic horses in S...
Powell DG.Examples of equine disease surveillance at the local, regional, national and international level are discussed in this article. Reporting systems at each level are also considered, and the increasing importance of laboratory confirmed diagnoses is emphasized. The need to develop national disease reporting systems is addressed, particularly with respect to conforming to international trading standards.
Edwards WC, Edwards RM, Ogden L, Whaley M.Cantharidin content of male and female Epicauta occidentalis and E conferta was determined. Aspects of the life cycle of blister beetles, taxonomy, pheromonal and adaptive functions of cantharidin relative to the medico-legal aspects of cantharidin poisoning, prevention and control in horses are discussed.
Losinno SJ, Aguilar J, Carbonetti L, Ferniot E, San Esteban F, Flores Suares CM.Strategies for parasite control have undergone major changes in recent years, especially in Europe and the United States, replacing traditional approaches by schemes based on surveillance and selective therapy. A first step in helminth control planning is to understand and demonstrate how horse owners or trainers currently control nematodes. The aim of this study was to collect information, through a survey, about important aspects of routine anthelmintic strategies in sport horses in Argentina and other regional countries. A total of 100 surveys were sent. Sixty nine were responded, 53% of th...
Rubes J, Borkovec L, Horínová Z, Urbanová J, Proroková I, Kulíková L.Cytogenetic examinations were carried out in 13 cattle farms, two herds of horses, one stag farm and 13 pig farms in areas with different levels of environmental contamination. The frequency of aberrant cells per 100 mitoses was 3.67 +/- 1.89 in pigs (n = 260) and 4.16 +/- 2.4 in herbivores (n = 497). This is a significant difference (p < 0.01). Ten times higher frequencies of chromatid exchanges were found in pigs. The examined herds were classified into three groups by the level of environmental contamination (satisfactory, impaired and severely impaired environment). Significant differen...
de la Rúa-Domènech R, Mohammed HO, Atwill ER, Cummings JF, Divers TJ, Summers BA, deLahunta A, Jackson C.To examine the regional variations in the distribution of equine motor neuron disease (EMND) in the United States and the factors that might explain those variations. Methods: Cluster investigation and case-control study. Methods: The study population consisted of 97 horses with histopathologically confirmed EMND and 698 controls with diagnosis of other spinal cord disorders at 21 US veterinary teaching hospitals participating in the Veterinary Medical Data Base. Methods: The total horse population of the United States was divided into 21 regions, and the regional incidence rates of EMND from ...
Sengupta PP, Rudramurthy GR, Ligi M, Roy M, Balamurugan V, Krishnamoorthy P, Nagalingam M, Singh L, Rahman H.Trypanosoma evansi, a haemoflagellate, causes "surra" an important chronic wasting disease of a wide range of wild and domestic herbivorous and carnivorous animals including cattle, buffaloes, camels, horses, etc. The untreated recovered animal can act as a carrier without exhibiting the disease symptoms and can be a source of infection to healthy animals. The diagnosis and subsequent treatment of the carrier animals is helpful to curb the disease. As the parasitaemia in carrier animals is very scanty, the conventional blood smear examination, which is widely practiced in the field, cannot det...
Hryhorczuk DO, Withrow WA, Hesse CS, Beasley VR.The authors investigated an outbreaks of unusual illnesses in humans and horses residing within 1.3 km of a wire reclamation incinerator. The study included site visits; medical and veterinary examinations; analyses of furnace ash, fly ash, soil, and biologic samples for air residues. Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxins (TCDDs) and tetrachlorodibenzofurans (TCDFs) were discovered in furnace ash, fly ash, soil, horse fat, and horse liver samples.
Fox-Clipsham LY, Brown EE, Carter SD, Swinburne JE.The Fell and Dales are UK pony breeds that have small populations and may be at risk from in-breeding and inherited diseases. Foal immunodeficiency syndrome (FIS) is a lethal inherited disease caused by the recessive mutation of a single gene, which affects both Fell and Dales ponies and potentially other breeds that have interbred with either of these. FIS, previously known as Fell pony syndrome, is characterised by progressive anaemia and severe B lymphocyte deficiency. The identification of the causal mutation for this disease led to the recent development of a DNA-based carrier test. In th...
Chicken C, Muscatello G, Freestone J, Anderson GA, Browning GF, Gilkerson JR.Disease caused by Rhodococcus equi is a significant burden to the horse breeding industry worldwide. Early detection of rhodococcal pneumonia, albeit important to minimise treatment costs, is difficult because of the insidious nature of the disease and the lack of definitive diagnostic tests. Objective: To investigate air sampling from the breathing zone of neonatal foals as a predictor of subsequent rhodococcal pneumonia. Methods: Air samples were collected from the breathing zone of 53 neonatal foals (age ≤10 days) and again at the time of routine ultrasonographic screening for R. equi p...
Dhaouadi S, Mahjoub T, Drissi G, Bahri A, Mhadhbi M, Sassi L, Gharbi M.Leishmaniosis (Leishmania infantum infection) and piroplasmoses (Theileria equi and Babesia caballi infections) are vector-borne diseases with significant economic and public health impacts. Despite their importance, there is a lack of data concerning these infections in equids from Tunisia. The present study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of L. infantum, T. equi and B. caballi in 104 equids from northern Tunisia. The authors reported for the first time on the seroprevalence of anti-Leishmania antibodies in equids in Tunisia (6.7%). The study reported a high infection prevalence of...
Ochi A, Bannai H, Aonuma H, Kanuka H, Uchida-Fujii E, Kinoshita Y, Ohta M, Kambayashi Y, Tsujimura K, Ueno T, Nemoto M.Mosquitoes and EDTA-treated blood samples from febrile racehorses were investigated for Getah virus infection from 2016 to 2019 at the Miho Training Center, where several outbreaks of Getah virus have occurred. We collected 5557 mosquitoes and 331 blood samples from febrile horses in this study. The most frequently captured mosquito species was Culex tritaeniorhynchus (51.9%), followed by Aedes vexans nipponii (14.2%) and Anopheles sinensis (11.2%). Getah virus was detected in mosquitoes (Aedes vexans nipponii) in 2016 (strain 16-0810-26) but not in 2017-2019. Six of 74 febrile horses in 2016 ...
Amat JP, Vergne T, Tapprest J, Ferry B, Hans A, Hendrikx P, Dufour B, Leblond A.Equine viral arteritis (EVA) may have serious economic impact on the equine industry. For this reason, it is monitored in many countries, especially in breeding stock, to avoid its spread during breeding activities. In France, surveillance is mainly based on serological tests, since mares are not vaccinated, but difficulties in interpreting certain series of results may impair the estimation of the number of outbreaks. In this study, we propose specific rules for identifying seroconversion in order to estimate the number of outbreaks that were detected by the breeding stock surveillance compon...
Brankston G, Rossi TM, O'Sullivan TL, Greer AL.This retrospective study describes testing patterns and the incidence of subsp. in Ontario to assess the utility of laboratory data for surveillance purposes. Laboratory records for equine infectious disease test submissions were extracted from the Animal Health Laboratory (AHL) at the University of Guelph for the years 2008 to 2018. Yearly and seasonal trends in testing and the proportion of tests that returned positive results were assessed. The number of samples submitted for testing decreased over the 11-year period (odds ratio = 0.96, 95% confidence interval: 0.92 to 0.999; = 0.04). ...
Lopez KM, Fleming GJ, Mylniczenko ND.Reports of equine herpesvirus (EHV) 1 and EHV-9 causing clinical disease in a wide range of species have been well documented in the literature. It is thought that zebras are the natural hosts of EHV-9 both in the wild and in captive collections. Concerns about potential interspecies transmission of EHV-1 and EHV-9 in a mixed species savannah exhibit prompted serologic and polymerase chain reaction surveys. Eighteen Burchell's zebras ( Equus quagga ), 11 Hartmann's mountain zebras ( Equus zebra hartmannae), and 14 Thomson's gazelles ( Eudorcas thomsonii ) cohabitating the same exhibit were exa...
Lyons ET, Drudge JH, Tolliver SC.Eyes from 114 (30.3%) of 376 dead horses, examined from 3 April 1975 to 3 April 1976, were naturally infected with adult Thelazia lacrymalis; 1 horse was also infected with 1 male Thelazia skrijabini. Adult T. lacrymalis from dead horses were successfully transferred mechanically to the eyes of 3 of 4 Shetland ponies raised helminth-free. Larvae from gravid female T. lacrymalis underwent development in experimentally infected, laboratory-raised face flies (Musca autumnalis) and third-stage larvae ranging from 1.82 to 2.94 mm in total length were recovered at 12 to 15 days postexposure. A total...
Mazzei M, Savini G, Di Gennaro A, Macchioni F, Prati MC, Guzmàn LR, Tolari F.West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne virus belonging to the family Flaviviridae included in the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex (JEAC). A seroepidemiological study was carried out in 2011 using 160 horse sera collected from different areas of Bolivia to investigate the presence of WNV antibody. A high proportion (59.4%) of the tested sera were positive to a commercially available WNV competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (C-ELISA). Sixty-six randomly selected C-ELISA-positive sera were further tested by WNV plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT), virus neutralization ...
Downs JA, Hyzer G, Marion E, Smith ZJ, Kelen PV, Unnasch TR.Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) is a mosquito-borne viral disease that is often fatal to humans and horses. Some species including white-tailed deer and passerine birds can survive infection with the EEE virus (EEEV) and develop antibodies that can be detected using laboratory techniques. In this way, collected serum samples from free ranging white-tailed deer can be used to monitor the presence of the virus in ecosystems. This study developed and tested a risk index model designed to predict EEEV activity in white-tailed deer in a three-county area of Michigan. The model evaluates EEEV risk...
de Vos CJ, Petie R, van Klink EGM, Swanenburg M.Increasing globalization and international trade contribute to rapid expansion of animal and human diseases. Hence, preparedness is warranted to prevent outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases or detect outbreaks in an early stage. We developed a rapid risk assessment tool (RRAT) to inform risk managers on the incursion risk of multiple livestock diseases, about the main sources for incursion and the change of risk over time. RRAT was built as a relational database to link data on disease outbreaks worldwide, on introduction routes and on disease-specific parameters. The tool was parame...
McCluskey BJ, Mumford EL, Salman MD, Traub-Dargatz JJ.Approximately 20 sentinel premises in Colorado were visited quarterly during a 3-year prospective study to investigate the persistence of VS viruses in horses. A survey to assess management practices, health events, animal movements and environmental data was completed at each visit. Collection of serum samples and oral swabs along with a clinical examination of sentinel horses were performed at each visit. Serum samples were tested by 2 or more of 4 available serological tests. The data collected for two years (August 1998 to August 2000) are reported here. During this period there was seroco...
Naidoo V, Gehring R.An overview of reports of suspected adverse drug reactions received by the Veterinary Pharmacovigilance and Medicines Information Centre during the period March 2001 to February 2002 is given. A total of 77 reports were received. The majority of reports involved suspected adverse reactions that occurred in dogs and cats. Most products implicated in the reports were Stock Remedies. The products were predominantly administered either by veterinarians or trained paraveterinary professionals. Although the majority of reports were received from veterinary pharmaceutical companies, the proportion of...
Mehdizadeh Gohari I, Boerlin P, Prescott JF.NetF-producing type A Clostridium perfringens, a pathotype of C. perfringens, causes necrotizing enteritis in neonatal foals and necrotizing and hemorrhagic enteritis in dogs. Recent core genome multilocus sequence typing study revealed that netF+ C. perfringens strains belong to two distinct clonal populations (clonal complexes I and II). There are no reports on susceptibility to antimicrobial drugs of isolates from this pathotype. The susceptibility to 13 different antimicrobial drugs of 49 netF+ strains recovered from foals or dogs with necrotizing enteritis in Canada, the United States, an...
Reck C, Menin Á, Batista F, Meira Santos PO, Miletti LC.Surra is an infectious disease caused by , which affects a large number of domestic and wild animal species. Infection control is based on rapid diagnosis followed by treatment of sick animals. This study aimed to evaluate a buffered antigen and rapid serum agglutination test (BA/Te) for the detection of anti- antibodies in serum samples of horses. For this purpose, 445 serum samples from horses were evaluated and the results compared with the diagnosis by CATT/. Our data show a sensitivity of 92%, specificity of 91% and a degree of agreement kappa () of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.771-0.877, < 0...
Docherty DE, Samuel MD, Egstad KF, Griffin KM, Nolden CA, Karwal L, Ip HS.After the 2001 occurrence of West Nile virus (WNV) in Wisconsin (WI), we collected sera, during 2003-2006, from south-central WI mesopredators. We tested these sera to determine WNV antibody prevalence and geometric mean antibody titer (GMAT). Four-fold higher antibody prevalence and 2-fold higher GMAT in 2003-2004 indicated greater exposure of mesopredators to WNV during the apparent epizootic phase. The period 2005-2006 was likely the enzootic phase because WNV antibody prevalence fell to a level similar to other flaviviruses. Our results suggest that, in mesopredators, vector-borne transmis...
Dauphin G, Zientara S.West Nile virus, a flavivirus transmitted by mosquitoes, has been intensively studied since a few years because of epidemics/epizootics it has caused the last ten years, in particular around the Mediterranean basin and on the North-American continent. This virus mainly circulates in birds ; migrating bird species disseminate the virus while resident species could play a role in viral cycle amplification. A large number of mammal, amphibian and reptile species can also be infected. This virus can cause a lethal disease in humans and horses. For this reason, an active and/or passive surveillance...
