The following report was composed with information provided by laboratories in Lexington, Kentucky, the University of Kentucky Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and by Equine Diagnostic Solutions, Inc. We are also grateful to IDEXX laboratories, Germany, for sharing their quarterly PCR respiratory panel results with this community.
Veterinarian vaccinating a horse with help of intern.
The Equine Disease Quarterly covers infectious disease reports from around the world is published digitally in January, April, July and October and provides information of interest to all horse owners.
© 2013 by Karin Belgrave New window.
We included information from the International Thoroughbred Breeders’ Federation; the International Collating Centre in Newmarket,United Kingdom; and from the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Equine Disease Communication Center.
This report is retrospective and does not claim to be complete. However, it provides an indication of heightened activity of several considered relevant contagious or environment-linked diseases among equids. To further improve this data set, we encourage everyone in/outside the United States to report laboratory-confirmed (toxico)infectious disease of Equidae to the ICC in Newmarket, UK, or EDCC, USA.
We received a single report of Hendra infection in a horse from Australia. Libya reported an outbreak of Equine Influenza on a premises south of Tripoli. Summer and early Fall is typically the season where mosquito-borne diseases are more prevalent. Hence, cases of Eastern equine encephalitis virus infections have increased. What is worrisome is that there is increased reporting of EEE from the Midwest United States and from eastern Canada provinces (12 cases in Ontario).
Summer is also the season for West Nile virus infections. Both EEEV and WNV infections are known causes of clinical neurologic disease in horses. During the past quarter, we witnessed a surge of equine WNV cases, particularly in the Western United States. The surge began with cases in Colorado’s more densely populated Front Range; followed by unusually high numbers reported from the neighboring states of Wyoming, Nebraska, Utah, Idaho and Montana. Additionally, California reported a surge of clinical WNV cases.
Many affected horses were unvaccinated or ‘not current’ on their vaccinations. France (Europe) also reported WNV cases, while other parts of Europe with endemic WNV have not yet provided information.
North America reported scattered cases of EIA positive horses, with six unrelated cases in Texas. In Europe, France and Italy reported incidental EIA cases.
Canada reported an outbreak of Equine Arteritis virus on a stud farm in the province of Prince Edward Island, where a number of newborn foals apparently died of (interstitial) pneumonitis. North America and Europe (France, Sweden and Switzerland) reported Strangles (Streptococcus equi spp. equi) cases and outbreaks in several locations. It is currently the most consistently reported pathogen for both continents. For North America, the majority of cases have been reported from several distinct regions. For the USA, hot spots have been Florida, Michigan and Washington.
For Canada, reports primarily originated from the Province of Ontario. There have been a few reports of Equine Influenza outbreaks/cases in the UK, France, Sweden and the Netherlands.
We already mentioned the EI outbreak in Libya. USA reports two EI outbreaks, one in the Pacific Northwest and one in the Mid-Atlantic region. Few equid alphaherpesvirus respiratory infections (fewer EHV-1 than -4) were reported from North America and continental Europe. A single abortion caused by EHV-4 (Europe-France) and two isolated cases of EHV-1 neurologic disease in North America (with the remainder of the herd in quarantine) were reported.
Vesicular Stomatitis virus (Rhabdoviridae) infections in horses in the USA have not been contained. New cases were reported from
California, Texas and Nevada, although the numbers are decreasing.
Miscellaneous:
A case of Rabies infection was reported from Oklahoma, USA. Kentucky laboratories and the laboratory in Germany reported high incidences of Strep. equi
spp equi and EHV-4 positive samples with positive EHV-1 samples submitted on rare occasions. EDS (Kentucky) reports a moderate number of EI positive samples with origin from the Eastern United States, while there were no EI reports from the German laboratory. UK-VDL (Kentucky)reported three samples positive for Equine Viral Arteritis; however, there is apparently no link to the EAV outbreak in Canada.
Press release by Lutz Goehring University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center – Department of Veterinary Science