Content area
Full text
To gain an insight into equine surveillance trends in the UK over time, data collated and reported by Defra, the Animal Health Trust and the British Equine Veterinary Association for contagious equine metritis (CEM) were reviewed between 2005 and 2009.
CEM is an infectious disease of equids caused by the CEM organism (CEMO; Taylorella equigenitalis ). In mares, there are two states of infection: the active state, in which the main clinical sign is vulval discharge, and the carrier state, in which there are no outward signs of infection but the mare remains capable of shedding. Stallions do not generally show clinical signs of infection but can become carriers with the ability to transmit disease.
Transmission of the disease can occur directly or indirectly during mating or teasing by genital or nasogenital contact, but also by means of contaminated semen used for artificial insemination or indirect iatrogenic transmission via the hands and equipment of staff or veterinary surgeons who have handled the tail or genitalia of an infected horse.
CEM was first reported in 1977 on stud farms in England, and was found in horses imported from Europe into Kentucky, USA, in 1978. The emergence of this new disease triggered the development of the first Horserace Betting Levy Board (HBLB) Code of Practice for control of this infection, in conjunction with other bacterial venereal pathogens such as Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa .
In the UK, isolation of CEMO is notifiable by law under the Infectious Diseases of Horses Order 1987,...