Eliminate infection in horse populations

Every year outbreaks of the highly infectious disease ´strangles´ occurs in horses throughout Sweden. Animals in these outbreaks are severely ill for extended periods and may even have life threatening complications. Despite strangles being a reportable disease in Sweden it continues to plague the horse industry. This disease should and could be eradicated from our horses.

The goal of this project is to provide a platform of tools essential for control and eventual eradication of Strangles from our horse population. The platform will be multifaceted, bringing together determination of methods of disease introduction and spread, improved identification and elimination of carrier-state, along establishing criteria for disease free status at the individual and stable level.

Active communication to the horse owning public of the findings will form a key foundation of the overall project to raise public awareness and provide them with open access to current and practical information on biosecurity measures for their efforts in dealing with introduction of strangles to their premises

Financier: FORMAS
Co-applicant: Miia Riihimäki (KV), Anna Aspán, Viveca Båverud, Gittan Gröndahl (SVA) Bengt Guss, NL fak.
Collaborator: SVA, NL fakultet