A number of Ontario fairs have cancelled horse shows because of concerns about strangles. Strangles is a nasty and highly contagious disease of horses caused by the bacterium Streptococcus equi, which is currently circulating in horses in Ontario (as in most places where horses are present). While most horses recover uneventfully from the
Streptococcal infection from a horse
A common limitation of studies or case reports of zoonotic pathogens or infections is that they are one sided – they often just discuss the human case(s), or they just report carriage of a pathogen in animals. Case reports of human infections often only go as far as saying something along the lines of “
Flesh Eating Disease with a Pony Link
The bacterium Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus (often simply called Streptococcus zooepidemicus) is one that I think I understand less and less, including the risks this predominantly equine-associated bug poses to humans. It’s a well-known and common bacterium in horses, both healthy and sick, and can also be found in dogs and cats (where it
Fatal Horse-Associated Streptococcus zooepidemicus Infection
A recent report in MMWR describes a pair of Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus infections in people. The cases are noteworthy because this bacterium doesn’t often cause human infections, and because one of the infected people died.
More commonly referred to simply as Strep zoo, this bacterium is very commonly found in perfectly healthy
Oddball infections or concerns?
Anytime you see a case report in the medical literature, you know it must be something rare or new. Otherwise, no one would publish the occurrence of a single case. That can skew people’s perceptions because weird things get more attention.
So, it’s always hard to say what we should think about one-off reports of
Equine strangles persistence
This week, a horse show in Halifax (UK) was cancelled because of some local cases of strangles (Streptococcus equi subsp equi infection). We can debate whether that was prudent or overkill (or whether measures could have been put in place to reduce the risk and make it manageable), but it highlights the concerns that
Horses, strangles, streptococcus
A paper in the journal BMC Research Notes describes a case of meningitis in a 73-year-old man that was attributed to contact with a horse (Madzar et al 2015). The man was admitted to hospital with fever, headache, neck stiffness, malaise and drowsiness. He was ultimately diagnosed with meningitis caused by Streptococcus zooepidemicus
Beware the mongoose
I’ve been bitten lots of times, some on the job (including the last dog I saw when I was in general practice) and some off (including a dog down the road a couple of years ago). Fortunately, I haven’t suffered any serious consequences. That’s what happens most of the time. However, bad things can and do
Streptococcus zooepidemicus: Bar-coding the bad guys
Here is another equine update from guest blogger, Dr. John Prescott of the University of Guelph.
Research presented at the Ninth International Equine Infectious Disease conference last week in Lexington, Kentucky, highlighted the dramatic impact that the latest inexpensive genome sequencing techniques are having on understanding microbial disease.
This is well illustrated by an epidemic
Will genomics eradicate strangles?
More from the International Conference on Equine Infectious Diseases, this time from guest blogger and bacteriologist-extraordinaire, Dr. John Prescott of the University of Guelph:
Stellar work on understanding strangles and Streptococcus equi subspecies equi was presented at the Ninth International Equine Infectious Disease conference in Lexington, Kentucky. Researchers at the Animal Health Trust in