Holiday Reading: Equine Quarterly Disease Report
The latest version of the DEFRA/AHT/BEVA Equine Quarterly Disease Report has been released. This is a joint venture of three British organizations, and often contains some interesting infectious disease information. This edition contains brief information about diagnoses of selected diseases such as equine herpesvirus (EHV) -1 abortion, EHV-1 neurological disease and equine influenza. There is also a brief review of the eradication of equine infectious anemia (EIA) following the 2006 outbreak in Ireland, which was also discussed in a previous equIDblog post.
Another useful piece of information in this report is the data regarding strangles (Streptococcus equi subsp. equi) diagnoses. They report 280 positive S. equi culture results and 167 positive S. equi PCR test results during the last quarter. This shows once again that strangles is still a rather common disease. This is important to remember when considering routine infection control practices, because the risk of strangles exposure is ever-present, it is not just concern during outbreaks. Also, people shouldn’t overreact to single cases of strangles (as they often do), since this disease is far from rare.
The full Equine Quarterly Disease Report can be downloaded by clicking here, or through the Animal Health Trust’s website.
Image from http://snapshot.parade.com/mainemb.php?g2_itemId=783542.
