Infectious diseases in horses encompass a range of illnesses caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites. These diseases can affect various systems within the equine body, leading to symptoms that range from mild discomfort to severe systemic illness. Common infectious diseases in horses include equine influenza, strangles, equine herpesvirus, and West Nile virus. These diseases can be transmitted through direct contact with infected animals, contaminated surfaces, or vectors such as insects. Understanding the mechanisms of transmission, pathogenesis, and immune response is essential for effective prevention and control. This page compiles peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and management of infectious diseases in horses.
Corapi WV, Birch SM, Carlson KL, Chaffin MK, Snowden KF.CASE DESCRIPTION-A 22-year-old American Paint Horse gelding from the Gulf Coast region of Texas was evaluated for regrowth of a perirectal squamous cell carcinoma that had been surgically removed 11 months previously. CLINICAL FINDINGS-A necrotic and ulcerated mass was present below the anus. The horse had paraphimosis and was having difficulty with urination. Histologic examination of the mass revealed that it was squamous cell carcinoma, and the horse was euthanized because of the unlikelihood that the mass could be adequately resected and its close proximity to the urethra. OUTCOME-At necro...
Giguère S, Cohen ND, Chaffin MK, Hines SA, Hondalus MK, Prescott JF, Slovis NM.Pneumonia is a major cause of disease and death in foals. Rhodococcus equi, a gram-positive facultative intracellular pathogen, is a common cause of pneumonia in foals. This article reviews the clinical manifestations of infection caused by R. equi in foals and summarizes current knowledge regarding mechanisms of virulence of, and immunity to, R. equi. A complementary consensus statement providing recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment, control, and prevention of infections caused by R. equi in foals can be found in the same issue of the Journal.
Arias M, Yeargan M, Francisco I, Dangoudoubiyam S, Becerra P, Francisco R, Sánchez-Andrade R, Paz-Silva A, Howe DK.Horses serve as an intermediate host for several species of Sarcocystis, all of which utilize canids as the definitive host. Sarcocystis spp. infection and formation of latent sarcocysts in horses often appears to be subclinical, but morbidity can occur, especially when the parasite burden is large. A serological survey was conducted to determine the presence of antibodies against Sarcocystis spp. in seemingly healthy horses from the Galicia region of Spain. Western blot analyses using Sarcocystis neurona merozoites as heterologous antigen suggested greater than 80% seroprevalance of Sarcocyst...
Blatti S, Overesch G, Gerber V, Frey J, Hüssy D.A retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the leptospiral seroprevalence in clinically healthy horses in Switzerland. A representative sample of 615 horse sera was examined by microscopic agglutination test for the presence of antibodies against 15 Leptospira spp. serovars. In total, 58.5 % (n = 360) of the horses were positive for one or more of the antigens analysed, with 20.3 % of them showing titres >= 400. The most prevalent serovar was Pyrogenes (22.6 %), followed by serovars Canicola (22.1 %) and Australis (19.2 %). Older horses, mares, ponies and ani...
Gildea S, Quinlivan M, Arkins S, Cullinane A.Antigenic and genetic drift of equine influenza (EI) virus is monitored annually by the Expert Surveillance Panel (ESP), which make recommendations on the need to update vaccines. Surveillance programmes are essential for this process to operate effectively and to decrease the risk of disease spread through the international movement of subclinically infected vaccinated horses. Not only is surveillance necessary to inform vaccine companies which strains are in circulation, but it serves as an early warning system for horse owners, trainers and veterinary clinicians, facilitating the implementa...
Gildea S, Arkins S, Walsh C, Cullinane A.Many racing authorities, sales companies and equestrian bodies have mandatory vaccination policies for equine influenza (EI). The consequences of lack of vaccine efficacy include clinical disease, disruption to training programmes, the cancellation of equestrian events and the introduction of virus to susceptible populations. The correlation between antibody against the virus haemagglutinin and protection against influenza has been well established. The objective of this study was to compare the antibody responses of 66 unvaccinated Thoroughbred weanlings on four different stud farms, followin...
Bourgeois MA, Denslow ND, Seino KS, Barber DS, Long MT.Gene expression associated with West Nile virus (WNV) infection was profiled in the central nervous system of horses. Pyrosequencing and library annotation was performed on pooled RNA from the CNS and lymphoid tissues on horses experimentally infected with WNV (vaccinated and naïve) and non-exposed controls. These sequences were used to create a custom microarray enriched for neurological and immunological sequences to quantitate gene expression in the thalamus and cerebrum of three experimentally infected groups of horses (naïve/WNV exposed, vaccinated/WNV exposed, and normal).From the sequ...
Pronost S, Legrand L, Pitel PH, Wegge B, Lissens J, Freymuth F, Richard E, Fortier G.Equid herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1)-associated myeloencephalopathy (EHM) is a disease affecting the central nervous system of horses. Despite the constantly increasing interest about this syndrome, epidemiological data are limited especially when related to the description of large outbreaks. The aim of this article is to describe clinical, virological and molecular data obtained throughout a severe outbreak of EHM, with emphasis on laboratory diagnostic methods. The epidemic disease concerned a riding school in France where 7/66 horses aged 12-22 years developed signs of neurological disease in July ...
Wong SS, Ngan AH, Riggs CM, Teng JL, Choi GK, Poon RW, Hui JJ, Low FJ, Luk A, Yuen KY.The newly described brittle tail syndrome causes weakening and breakage of the tail hair of horses. Extensive mycological and molecular studies showed that a novel fungus Equicapillimyces hongkongensis gen. nov., sp. nov. is the most likely cause of this syndrome. It is a septate branching hyaline mould which grows optimally at 30°C, requires nicotinic acid but is inhibited by cycloheximide, and specifically infects horse hair. Hyphae fill the core of infected hair shafts with short-necked structures resembling ascomata containing banana-shaped septate ascospore-like structures perforating th...
Scheffer EG, Venter GJ, Labuschagne K, Page PC, Mullens BA, MacLachlan NJ, Osterrieder N, Guthrie AJ.Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) are vectors of a variety of pathogens including African horse sickness virus (AHSV), a member of the family Reoviridae, genus Orbivirus. AHSV causes African horse sickness (AHS), an endemic disease of equids with an extremely high mortality rate in horses in sub-Saharan Africa. Culicoides (Avaritia) imicola Kieffer is considered to be the principal vector of AHSV and is the dominant Culicoides species in South Africa. Due to the global distribution of Culicoides vectors, there is a potential risk of AHS spreading from endemic areas to areas t...
Azab W, El-Sheikh A, Abdel-Gawad A.Equine herpesvirus 4 (EHV-4) is an important pathogen that causes respiratory tract disease in horse populations worldwide. Glycoprotein G (gG) homologs have been identified in several alphaherpesviruses as minor non-essential membrane-anchored glycoproteins. In this study, EHV-4 gG deletion mutant has been generated by using bacterial artificial chromosome technology to investigate the role of gG in viral pathogenesis. Our findings reported here revealed no significant difference between parental EHV-4 and gG-negative strain in their replication cycle in cell culture. Furthermore, virus titer...
Asseged BD, Habtemariam T, Tameru B, Nganwa D.Deriving horse oocytes in the USA is hampered by the lack of abattoirs processing horse carcasses which could provide abundant quantities of ovaries from slaughtered mares. Therefore, several cloning industries in the USA are attempting to import cloned horse embryos from Canada. Like any agricultural commodity, cloned embryos pose a risk of introduction of exotic animal diseases into the importing country. Under such circumstances, risk assessment could provide an objective, transparent, and internationally accepted means for evaluating the risk. This quantitative risk assessment (QRA) was in...
Sasaki M, Kim E, Igarashi M, Ito K, Hasebe R, Fukushi H, Sawa H, Kimura T.Equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1), an α-herpesvirus of the family Herpesviridae, causes respiratory disease, abortion, and encephalomyelitis in horses. EHV-1 utilizes equine MHC class I molecules as entry receptors. However, hamster MHC class I molecules on EHV-1-susceptible CHO-K1 cells play no role in EHV-1 entry. To identify the MHC class I molecule region that is responsible for EHV-1 entry, domain exchange and site-directed mutagenesis experiments were performed, in which parts of the extracellular region of hamster MHC class I (clone C5) were replaced with corresponding sequences from equine...
Herder V, Barsnick R, Walliser U, Teifke JP, König P, Czerwinski G, Hansmann F, Baumgärtner W, Hewicker-Trautwein M.An equid herpesvirus 5 (EHV-5) infection was detected in lesioned skin from a nine-year-old Holsteiner stallion in the south of Germany. Macroscopically, the animal displayed a non-pruritic, multifocal, pustular dermatitis around both eyes, nostrils and the muzzle, which had been ongoing for one year. Histopathologically, skin lesions were characterized by orthokeratotic to parakeratotic hyperkeratosis, pustular dermatitis, epidermal hyperplasia, apoptotic keratinocytes, a lympho-plasmahistiocytic interface dermatitis with hydropic degeneration of keratinocytes, and perivascular to diffuse, ly...
Böer U, Lohrenz A, Klingenberg M, Pich A, Haverich A, Wilhelmi M.Decellularized equine carotid arteries (dEAC) may represent a reasonable alternative to alloplastic materials in vascular replacement therapy. Acellularity of the matrix is standardly evaluated by DNA quantification what however may not record sufficiently the degree of matrix immunogenicity. Thus, our aim was to analyze dEAC with a low DNA content for residual cellular proteins. A detergent-based decellularization protocol including endonuclease treatment resulted in dEAC with 0.6 ± 0.15 ng DNA/mg dry weight representing 0.33 ± 0.14% of native tissue DNA content. In contrast, when matrices ...
Lewis NS, Daly JM, Russell CA, Horton DL, Skepner E, Bryant NA, Burke DF, Rash AS, Wood JL, Chambers TM, Fouchier RA, Mumford JA, Elton DM, Smith DJ.Equine influenza virus is a major respiratory pathogen in horses, and outbreaks of disease often lead to substantial disruption to and economic losses for equestrian industries. The hemagglutinin (HA) protein is of key importance in the control of equine influenza because HA is the primary target of the protective immune response and the main component of currently licensed influenza vaccines. However, the influenza virus HA protein changes over time, a process called antigenic drift, and vaccine strains must be updated to remain effective. Antigenic drift is assessed primarily by the hemagglu...
Artiushin S, Tong Y, Timoney J, Lemieux B, Schlegel A, Kong H.A simple and portable assay for detection of Streptococcus equi subspecies equi has been developed based on amplification of S. equi-specific sequence using a thermophilic helicase-dependent reaction followed by visual detection of the amplicon in a disposable lateral flow cassette. An experimental kit (IsoAmp™ SE) was evaluated. Analytical sensitivity was 50 copies of S. equi genomic DNA per reaction. The IsoAmp SE assay had 100% specificity when applied to nasal swabs and washes. The assay was more sensitive than culture but less sensitive than nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The t...
Silva ML, Galiza GJ, Dantas AF, Oliveira RN, Iamamoto K, Achkar SM, Riet-Correa F.Outbreaks of eastern equine encephalitis observed from May 2008 to August 2009 in the Brazilian states of Pernambuco, Ceará, and Paraíba are reported. The disease occurred in 93 farms affecting 229 equids with a case fatality rate of 72.92%. Main clinical signs were circling, depression or hyperexcitability, ataxia, and progressive paralysis with a clinical manifestation period of 3-15 days. Main histologic lesions were a diffuse lymphocytic encephalomyelitis with neuronal death, satellitosis, neuronophagia, and hemorrhages being more severe in the cerebral gray matter of the telencephalon, ...
Khan I, Wieler LH, Melzer F, Gwida M, Santana VL, de Souza MM, Saqib M, Elschner MC, Neubauer H.The sensitivity and specificity of three commercially available complement fixation test (CFT) antigens from c.c.pro (c.c.pro), Central Veterinary Institute of Wageningen UR (CIDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) were comparatively evaluated by testing 410 sera collected from glanders-endemic and non-endemic areas (200 true-negative randomly collected sera and 210 sera collected from experimentally immunised animals (12 rabbits, 19 horses), clinically positive (135) and culture-positive (44) horses, donkeys and mules). Immunoblotting (IB) was used as the gold standard te...
Chhabra S, Ranjan R, Uppal SK, Singla LD.This article communicates the first per-acute and fatal clinical report of transplacental transmission of Theileria equi from carrier mothers to foals from Punjab, India. Two cases of equine piroplasmosis due to T. equi were diagnosed in neonatal foals borne to Throughbred mares. High degree of parasitemia with annular and maltese cross shaped parasites in erythrocytes was seen in both cases. Blood cellular changes revealed leucopenia and neutropenia with mild degenerative left shift. Anaemia was macrocytic normochromic type. Intense yellow discoloration of mucous membranes indicated jaundice....
Bruhn O, Grötzinger J, Cascorbi I, Jung S.Antimicrobial peptides play a pivotal role as key effectors of the innate immune system in plants and animals and act as endogenous antibiotics. The molecules exhibit an antimicrobial activity against bacteria, viruses, and eukaryotic pathogens with different specificities and potencies depending on the structure and amino-acid composition of the peptides. Several antimicrobial peptides were comprehensively investigated in the last three decades and some molecules with remarkable antimicrobial properties have reached the third phase of clinical studies. Next to the peptides themselves, numerou...
de Sousa ME, Araújo MA, Mota RA, Porto WJ, Souza AK, Dos Santos JL, da Silva PP.Normal fungal conjunctiva microbiota of horses remains stable in healthy animals, free from ocular and/or systemic diseases which may, eventually, cause ocular alterations. The knowledge of the fungal microbiota is of great importance due to the reduced number of studies reported in the literature and also to the large occurrence of ocular alterations, mainly keratomycosis, in these animals. The aim of this study was to isolate and to identify the fungi present in the ocular conjunctiva of healthy horses belonging to the Military Police Cavalry of Alagoas. Samples from both conjunctival sacks ...
first infected cases caused by West Nile virus were reported in Cuba in 2004. Objective: to monitor and learn about the prevalence of the West Nile virus in those areas with confirmed cases. Methods: the study was conducted in Jatibonico municipality and in the city of sancti Spiritus. A total number of 14 persons, 8 horses and 41 birds were researched to detect antibodies to flavivirus and specific antibodies to West Nile virus. Results: the presence of specific antibodies to West Nile virus was confirmed in 4 samples of sera from birds and in 4 from horses. One person was confirmed as one ca...
Zhang J.Prion diseases (e.g. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), variant CJD (vCJD), Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome (GSS), Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI) and Kuru in humans, scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or 'mad-cow' disease) and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in cattles) are invariably fatal and highly infectious neurodegenerative diseases affecting humans and animals. However, by now there have not been some effective therapeutic approaches or medications to treat all these prion diseases. Rabbits, dogs, and horses are the only mammalian species reported to be resistant...
Nemoto M, Yamanaka T, Bannai H, Tsujimura K, Kondo T, Matsumura T.Reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) was applied to the detection of equine influenza virus (EIV). Because equine influenza is caused currently by EIV of the H3H8 subtype, the RT-LAMP primer set was designed to target the hemagglutinin gene of this subtype. The detection limit of the RT-LAMP assay was a virus dilution of 10(-5); which was 10(3) times more sensitive than the Espline Influenza A&B-N test and 10 times more sensitive than a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay. The specificity of the RT-LAMP assay was examined by usin...
Horsington JJ, Gilkerson JR, Hartley CA.Erbovirus is a genus of the family Picornaviridae and equine rhinitis B virus (ERBV) is the sole species. Erboviruses infect horses causing acute respiratory disease and sub-clinical and persistent infections. Despite the high seroprevalence and worldwide distribution of these viruses, the pathogenesis and antigenic structure of the three ERBV serotypes (ERBV1, 2 and 3) is poorly understood. To characterise linear epitopes on ERBV structural proteins, a set of fusion proteins were expressed in Escherichia coli. These proteins were tested in Western blot and ELISA and reactive proteins were als...
Boyle A.Streptococcus equi subspecies equi (strangles) is a highly contagious upper respiratory infection in horses. The infection is transmitted by inhalation or direct contact with mucopurulent discharge from an infective animal, resulting in fever, depression, and submandibular and retropharyngeal lymph node enlargement that can lead to respiratory distress. Complications include purpura hemorrhagica and metastatic abscessation. Control of outbreaks requires strict isolation protocols and hygiene measures. Detection of carriers is essential for preventing disease recurrence on a farm.
Françoso R, Riccio AV, Fernandes CB, Alonso MA, Belli CB.Equine piroplasmosis, disease globally responsible for significant economic losses, is caused by the transmission of the hemoprotozoa Theileria equi and Babesia caballi by ticks. Transplacental transmission has been reported previously in horses, which is not the case for mules´ foals. The present study investigated, by Real Time-PCR (RT-PCR), the presence of both Theileria equi and Babesia caballi in newborn mules before the ingestion of colostrum. Blood samples of 18 mares and their respective mules´ foals were collected and analyzed by RT-PCR. Only one mare was positive for B. caballi. In...
Suniga PAP, Mantovani C, Santos MG, Rieger JSG, Gaspar EB, Dos Santos FL, Mota RA, Chaves KP, Egito AA, Filho JCO, Nassar AFC, Dos Santos LR....Glanders is a contagious disease of equids caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Burkholderia mallei. In Brazil, the disease is considered to be reemerging and has been expanding, with records of equids with positive serology in most of the federative units. However, there are few reports describing the genotypic detection of the agent. This study demonstrated the detection of B. mallei by species-specific PCR directly from tissues or from bacterial cultures, followed by amplicon sequencing in equids (equines, mules, and asinines) with positive serology for glanders in all five geographic regi...
Berlin D, Nasereddin A, Azmi K, Ereqat S, Abdeen Z, Eyal O, Baneth G.Trypanosoma evansi is the cause of surra in horses, camels and other domestic animals. Following the first outbreak of surra in horses and camels in Israel in 2006, a survey of the prevalence of the parasite in the Israeli horse population was conducted using serology, PCR followed by the reverse dot blot (RDB) technique and blood smear microscopy. In total, 614 horses from 7 regions were sampled. The CATT/T. evansi kit was used for serology for all the horses. Horses from the Arava and Dead Sea region, where the first outbreak occurred, were sampled again one year later and both samples were ...
Heldens JG, van Loon AA, van de Zande S.Conventional equine influenza vaccination schedules consist of a primary course of two vaccinations given 4-6 weeks apart followed by a third vaccination (booster) given approximately 5 months later. In between the primary course and the third vaccination, horses are generally considered not to be adequately protected against influenza. This study aimed to investigate whether Thoroughbred foals would benefit from a vaccination schedule in which the third vaccination was given earlier than in conventional vaccination schedules. The vaccines used were an inactivated whole virus equine influenza ...
Kodama A, Yanai T, Yomemaru K, Sakai H, Masegi T, Yamada S, Fukushi H, Kuraishi T, Hattori S, Kai C.Equine herpesvirus 9 (EHV-9) is a new neurotropic equine herpesvirus which induced encephalitis in a variety of animals. However, there was no information on the susceptibility of EHV-9 in primates. Methods: To assess the infectivity of EHV-9, four common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) were inoculated by the nasal route with 10(6) plaque-forming units of EHV-9. Conclusions: All of the inoculated animals exhibited various neurological signs progressing to collapse. Histologically, the affected animals had severe encephalitis characterized by neuronal degeneration and necrosis with intranuclear ...
Manso TC, Groenner-Penna M, Minozzo JC, Antunes BC, Ippolito GC, Molina F, Felicori LF.Horse serum antibodies have been used for greater than a century for the treatment and prophylaxis of infectious diseases and envenomations. Little is known, however, about the immunogenetic diversity that produces horse serum antibodies. Here, we employed next-generation sequencing for a first-in-kind comprehensive analysis of the equine B-cell repertoire. Nearly 45,000 and 30,000 clonotypes were obtained for the heavy-chain (IGH) and lambda light-chain (IGL) loci, respectively. We observed skewed use of the common subgroups IGHV2 (92.49%) and IGLV8 (82.50%), consistent with previous reports,...
Da Silva AS, Jaguezeski AM, Laber IF, von Laer AE, Lovato LT, da Silva MO, de Moura AB.Leptospirosis in horses is often associated with reproductive disorders. In the southern states of Brazil, horses are used for various jobs and cultural practices; nevertheless, serological surveillance for Leptospira is rare. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of Leptospira spp. in horses in southern Brazil, as well as to identify the risk factors for infection and its impacts on reproduction. We performed microscopic agglutination tests for 12 serovars that corresponding 9 serogroup (Sejroe, Icterohaemorrhagiae, Australis, Pyrogenes, Pomona, Canicola, ...
Suganuma K, Yamasaki S, Molefe NI, Musinguzi PS, Davaasuren B, Mossaad E, Narantsatsral S, Battur B, Battsetseg B, Inoue N.Dourine is caused by Trypanosoma equiperdum via coitus with an infected horse. Although dourine is distributed in Equidae worldwide and is listed as an internationally important animal disease by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), no effective treatment strategies have been established. In addition, there are no reports on drug discovery, because no drug screening system exists for this parasite. A new T. equiperdum strain was recently isolated from the genital organ of a stallion that showed typical symptoms of dourine. In the present study, we adapted T. equiperdum IVM-t1 from...
Adam EN, Southwood LL.Surgical site infections (SSIs) and traumatic wound management remain challenging clinical scenarios. The prevention of SSIs involves meticulous surgical technique and aftercare. Traumatic wounds require thorough evaluation to assess the involvement of synovial structures and radiographs to check for fractures. Chronic wounds can require a biopsy and histologic evaluation to obtain a diagnosis, because many underlying pathologic processes grossly appear similar but different treatment regimens are required. Early recognition and diagnosis of cellulitis and myositis enable the rapid aggressive ...
Fisher M, Nebroski M, Davies J, Janzen E, Sullivan D, Lung O.The complete genome of a novel torque teno virus species (Torque teno equus virus 2 (TTEqV2) isolate Alberta/2018) was obtained by high-throughput sequencing (HTS) of nucleic acid extracted from the lung and liver tissue of a Quarter Horse gelding that died of nonsuppurative encephalitis in Alberta, Canada. The 2805 nucleotide circular genome is the first complete genome from the Mutorquevirus genus and has been approved as a new species by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The genome contains several characteristic features of torque teno virus (TTV) genomes, including an OR...
Platt H, Atherton JG, Simpson DJ.Four pony mares were readily infected with the organism of contagious equine metritis by intracervical inoculation and one by coitus with an infected stallion. Infected mares developed an acute endometritis with local destruction of the endometrial epithelium. In 2 experimentally infected mares, infection appeared to have been spontaneously eliminated from the genital tract within 3 to 4 weeks. A third mare however remained persistently infected in the clitoral fossa over a long period and was a symptomless carrier. Four pony stallions were readily infected in the urethral fossa and the organi...
BMC research notesJuly 19, 2016
Volume 9 353 doi: 10.1186/s13104-016-2161-9
Tarlinton RE, Alder L, Moreton J, Maboni G, Emes RD, Tötemeyer S.Toll like receptors are one of the major innate immune system pathogen recognition systems. There is little data on the expression of the TLR10 member of this family in the horse. Results: This paper describes the genetic structure of the Equine TLR10 gene and its RNA expression in a range of horse tissues. It describes the phylogenetic analysis of the Equine TLR1,6,10,2 annotations in the horse genome, firmly identifying them in their corresponding gene clades compared to other species and firmly placing the horse gene with other TLR10 genes from odd-toed ungulates. Additional 3' transcript e...
Hoyles L, Ortman K, Cardew S, Foster G, Rogerson F, Falsen E.Three strains of a Gram-positive, catalase-positive, fermentative, non-lipophilic, previously unknown bacterium were isolated from urogenital samples taken from mares in Scotland (M401624/00/1) and Sweden (VM 2074 and VM 2298(T)). All were deposited with the CCUG with tentative identifications as Corynebacterium spp. The strains were characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Biochemically, the strains were very similar to each other, but phylogenetically distinct from Corynebacterium species with validly published names (≤95% sequence similarity). rpoB gene sequence data confirmed...
Vissani MA, Thiry E, Dal Pozzo F, Barrandeguy M.Equid herpesvirus infections cause respiratory, neurological and reproductive syndromes. Despite preventive and control measures and the availability of vaccines and immunostimulants, herpesvirus infections still constitute a major threat to equine health and for the equine industry worldwide. Antiviral drugs, particularly nucleoside analogues and foscarnet, are successfully used for the treatment of human alphaherpesvirus infections. In equine medicine, the use of antiviral medications in alphaherpesvirus infections would decrease the excretion of virus and diminish the risk of contagion and ...
Brister H, Barnum SM, Reedy S, Chambers TM, Pusterla N.We validated 2 multiplex real-time PCR (rtPCR) assays based on single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the hemagglutinin-1 ( HA1) gene of H3N8 equine influenza A virus (EIV) to determine clade affiliation of prototype and field isolates. Initial validation of the 2 multiplex rtPCR assays (SNP1 and SNP2) was performed using nucleic acid from 14 EIV Florida sublineage clade 1 and 2 prototype strains. We included in our study previously banked EIV rtPCR-positive nasal secretions from 341 horses collected across the United States in 2012-2017 to determine their clade affiliation. All 14 EIV prot...
Jelocnik M, Nyari S, Anstey S, Playford N, Fraser TA, Mitchell K, Blishen A, Pollak NM, Carrick J, Chicken C, Jenkins C.C. psittaci has recently emerged as an equine abortigenic pathogen causing significant losses to the Australian Thoroughbred industry, while Equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) is a well-recognized abortigenic agent. Diagnosis of these agents is based on molecular assays in diagnostic laboratories. In this study, we validated C. psittaci and newly developed EHV-1 Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) assays performed in a real-time fluorometer (rtLAMP) against the reference diagnostic assays. We also evaluated isothermal amplification using commercially available colorimetric mix (cLAMP), and...
Moretti A, Boncio L, Pasquali P, Fioretti DP.Ringworm infections in the principal domestic animals are a major public and veterinary health problem. The aetiology, epidemiology and symptomatology of these mycoses are quite heterogeneous and complex. In this context, the AA carried out an epidemiological study to investigate the prevalence of dermatophytes in two different animal species, horses (n = 200) belonging to 10 private stables and cattle (n = 1900) belonging to farms with different breeding purposes and management. With regard to horses the results showed a positive level of 9% and Trichophyton equinum was the major organism iso...
Beltaire KA, Cheong SH, Coutinho da Silva MA.Knowledge of commonly encountered fungi infecting the mare's reproductive tract and their respective drug susceptibilities should improve treatment efficacy in mares with fungal endometritis. This is particularly important when practitioners need to start empiric treatment before culture results are complete. Objective: To report the spectrum of fungal isolates from uterine samples from mares with reproductive problems and their respective antifungal susceptibilities. Methods: Equine uterine samples submitted to the Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Centre for fungal culture between ...
Mellor PS.African horse sickness (AHS) virus causes a non-contagious, infectious, arthropod-borne disease of equines and is enzootic in sub-Saharan Africa. The major vectors are species of Culicoides but mosquitoes and ticks may be involved. Periodically the virus makes excursions beyond its enzootic zones but until recently has not been able to maintain itself outside these areas for more than 2-3 consecutive years. This is probably due to a number of factors including the absence of a long term vertebrate reservoir, the prevalence and seasonal incidence of the vectors and the efficiency of control mea...
Townsend NB, Hawkes CS, Rex R, Boden LA, Barakzai SZ.Radiography is commonly used for the diagnosis of equine cheek teeth (CT) infection but, to our knowledge, no study to date has evaluated the relative values of individual specific radiographic signs when making a diagnosis. Objective: To investigate the sensitivity and specificity of individual radiographic signs identified from the literature for the diagnosis of CT apical infection using a retrospective case-control study. Methods: Cropped radiographs taken using computed radiography of 41 apically infected CT and 41 control CT were independently blindly evaluated by 3 clinicians for the pr...
Gazzonis AL, Morganti G, Porcellato I, Roccabianca P, Avallone G, Gavaudan S, Canonico C, Rigamonti G, Brachelente C, Veronesi F. is a protozoan causing human zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis (ZVL) and visceral-cutaneous canine leishmaniosis (CanL) in the Mediterranean Basin. is able to infect a large number of wild and domestic species, including cats, dogs, and horses. Since the 1990s, clinical cases of equine leishmaniasis (EL), typically characterized by cutaneous forms, have been increasingly diagnosed worldwide. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the presence of clinical forms of EL in CanL-endemic areas in Italy, where exposure of equine populations was ascertained from recent serological surveys. For t...
Cook RF, Barrandeguy M, Lee PA, Tsai CF, Shen YH, Tsai YL, Chang HG, Wang HT, Balasuriya UBR.Control of equine infectious anaemia (EIA) currently depends on serological diagnosis of infected equids. However, recently infected equids may not produce detectable anti-EIAV antibodies up to 157 days post infection and so present a high transmission risk. Therefore, direct nucleic acid detection methods are urgently needed to improve EIAV surveillance and management programs in counties where the disease is endemic. Objective: To evaluate a field-deployable, reverse transcription-insulated isothermal PCR (RT-iiPCR) assay targeting the conserved 5' untranslated region (5' UTR)/exon 1 of the ...
van Maanen C, van Essen GJ, Minke J, Daly JM, Yates PJ.An outbreak of equine influenza H3N8 in a riding school is described retrospectively with emphasis on diagnosis and putative vaccine failure. In March 1995 an outbreak of equine influenza occurred among 11 horses in a riding school, where most horses had received basic primary immunizations and several booster vaccinations against influenza. Six of the 11 diseased horses had received their last booster vaccination within 5 months of the outbreak. Nevertheless, the influenza infection spread rapidly and clinical manifestations were prominent with frequent, harsh, dry coughing often accompanied ...
Dowdall SM, Proudman CJ, Love S, Klei TR, Matthews JB.Cyathostomins are important equine gastrointestinal parasites. Mass emergence of mucosal stage larvae causes a potentially fatal colitis. Mucosal stages are undetectable non-invasively. An assay that would estimate mucosal larval stage infection would greatly assist in treatment, control and prognosis. Previously, we identified two putative diagnostic antigens (20 and 25 kDa) in somatic larval preparations. Here, we describe their purification and antigen-specific IgG(T) responses to them. Western blots confirmed the purity of the antigens and showed that epitopes in the 20 kDa complex were sp...
Muirhead TL, McClure JT, Wichtel JJ, Stryhn H, Markham RJ, McFarlane D, Lunn DP.Few studies have investigated immunosenescence in the horse, but it is accepted that the primary and secondary (anamnestic) immune responses may differ between aged and younger horses. The aim of the present study was to determine whether aged horses have a protective immune response post-vaccination. Thirty-four aged healthy horses (> or =20 years) and 29 younger adult horses (4-12 years) of various breeds were vaccinated with commercially produced killed rabies and influenza vaccines. Rabies serum neutralizing antibody titres and equine influenza virus specific antibody subclasses (immunoglo...
Kulikov EE, Golomidova AK, Efimov AD, Belalov IS, Letarova MA, Zdorovenko EL, Knirel YA, Dmitrenok AS, Letarov AV.Tailed bacteriophages constitute the bulk of the intestinal viromes of vertebrate animals. However, the relationships between lytic and lysogenic lifestyles of phages in these ecosystems are not always clear and may vary between the species or even between the individuals. The human intestinal (fecal) viromes are dominated mostly by temperate phages, while in horse feces virulent phages are more prevalent. To our knowledge, all the previously reported isolates of horse fecal coliphages are virulent. Temperate coliphage Hf4s was isolated from horse feces, from the indigenous equine Escherichia ...
Kinoshita Y, Niwa H, Katayama Y.Microbial substitution occasionally occurs following the administration of antimicrobials to horses that have pneumonia or pleuropneumonia. Four specific loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assays were developed to detect some equine respiratory pathogens, namely strains of the Bacteroides-Prevotella group, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, and Staphylococcus aureus. These four LAMP assays and two previously published LAMP assays targeting Escherichia coli or Pseudomonas aeruginosa were used on clinical respiratory specimens and a high accordance found between the ...
Baghi HB, Laval K, Favoreel H, Nauwynck HJ.The nasal mucosa surface is continuously confronted with a broad variety of environmental antigens, ranging from harmless agents to potentially harmful pathogens. This area is under rigorous control of professional antigen presenting cells (APCs), such as dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages. Mucosal APCs play a crucial role in inducing primary immune responses and the establishment of an immunological memory. In the present study, a detailed characterization of CD172a(+) cells, containing the APCs residing in the equine nasal mucosa was performed for the first time. CD172a(+) cells were isol...
Errecalde JO, Carmely D, Mariño EL, Mestorino N.The serum and synovial pharmacokinetics of amoxycillin (AMX) were studied after i.v. administration at a dosage of 40 mg/kg to normal horses and horses with induced aseptic carpal arthritis. The best estimates of serum and synovial pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated by mono or bivariable non-linear regression analysis. A biexponential equation was used to describe the concentration vs. time profiles in both normal and arthritic horses. There were no serum kinetic differences between normal and arthritic horses. There were, however, major synovial kinetic changes between these groups. T...
Giessler KS, Samoilowa S, Soboll Hussey G, Kiupel M, Matiasek K, Sledge DG, Liesche F, Schlegel J, Fux R, Goehring LS.Upper respiratory tract infections with Equid Herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) typically result in a peripheral blood mononuclear cell-associated viremia, which can lead to vasculopathy in the central nervous system. Primary EHV-1 infection also likely establishes latency in trigeminal ganglia (TG) via retrograde axonal transport and in respiratory tract-associated lymphatic tissue. However, latency establishment and reactivation are poorly understood. To characterize the pathogenesis of EHV-1 latency establishment and maintenance, two separate groups of yearling horses were experimentally infected intra...
