Strangles And Disinfection
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Often, when someone calls and asks about management of strangles, one of the first questions is "What disinfectant should I use?"
There are basically two answers that I give:
1) Streptococcus equi, the cause of strangles, is susceptible to most disinfectants, provided they are used properly. That means using them at the proper concentration, providing the recommended contact time (5-30 minutes, depending on the disinfectant) and ensuring that there is minimal organic debris (e.g. dirt, manure, pus) present on the surface to be disinfected. The latter is a key point, as disinfectants do not work well in the presence of debris, so it's therefore understandably very difficult to really disinfect a stable. Some stable surfaces (e.g. sealed solid walls and floors, buckets) are able to be disinfected if it is done properly, while other surfaces (e.g. dirt floors, unsealed wood walls, leather) are essentially impossible to disinfect.
2) Disinfection is a very minor component of strangles control. It is something to pay attention to and it should be done properly, but too often people to focus on disinfection as the key infection control measure. Just disinfecting surfaces, but ignoring aspects like cohorting exposed and unexposed horses, restricting horse movement, testing for carriers, regular temperature checks of all horses to detect early cases, using good personal hygiene and using protective outerwear, is bound to fail in terms of controlling an outbreak.
So, don't ignore cleaning and disinfection, but don't' rely on it as the main component of strangles control.
More information about strangles can be found on the equIDblog Resources page.
