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The UK’s leading equine health & well-being magazine
February/March 11 £2.95
Foal pneumonia vaccine set for German trial By Louise Cordell
from a severe and potentially fatal disease.
A POSSIBLE vaccine against a bacteria that causes severe pneumonia in foals is to be tested in field trials in Germany.
“Moreover, for horse owners and breeders, disease prevention would avoid significant economic losses. Finally, the availability of a safe and efficacious vaccine would lead to a reduction of antibiotics prescriptions in animals.”
It has been announced that scientists are entering the final stage of development of a vaccine against Rhodococcus equi. It has been created using a special, nonpathogenic bacterium strain, which has had four genes deleted from the genome. Currently it is difficult to protect foals against this potentially fatal disease as, so far, attempts to develop a vaccine have not been successful. However, there is an urgent veterinary need for a safe vaccine that will prevent infection, because currently the disease can only be managed with long term antibiotic treatment. In addition, foals that do recover from the infection can be left with permanent pulmonary lesions, which decrease performance and can cause financial losses to the breeding sector. Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health has developed the candidate vaccine and Dr Rene Aerts, vice president of Global Biologicals Research and Development, said: “The advantage for the animals would be that they are protected against suffering
R. equi is found in soil and foals are infected by the bacterium while grazing or by inhalation of contaminated soil dust. This disease is primarily pathogenic in young foals, whereas most of the older equine population – above six to eight months of age are unaffected. The candidate vaccine strain is derived from a wild type R. equi bacterium which has lost its virulence through genetic modification. So far, extensive safety studies have been carried out to show the vaccine cannot cause pneumonia in foals, and also that it is expected to be unable to cause disease in humans or other animal species. In the next phase of the study, a group of foals will be vaccinated with the candidate vaccine and will be compared to a group of non-vaccinated foals. The number of R. equi infections will then be evaluated in each group, before a decision is made on how to proceed.
The Spanish Riding School has announced three London dates for its November 2011 tour. It has been five years since the horses and riders from the 430 year old school have visited the UK and their last shows sold out within days. The new show, titled ‘Imperial Dream’, will feature in-hand work and movements above the ground such as the Capriole, Levade and Courbette.