By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The state’s equine industry has not had the best of years with a decline in cash receipts estimated to be off by more than $100 million from 2007, so news of contagious equine metritis (CEM) found in horses here wasn’t welcomed.

The first discovery was made Dec. 10 during routine testing on a 16-year-old stallion located in central Kentucky. According to information from the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA), “the test was performed by the University of Kentucky Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center (LDDC) as a preliminary step to shipping frozen semen to the European Union. Samples were sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, which confirmed the diagnosis on (Dec. 15.)”

A few days later two more stallions tested positive for the disease all from the same farm. The KDA listed the stallions as being a 13-year-old Quarter Horse and a 4-year-old registered with the American Paint Horse Assoc.

CEM is a highly contagious, exotic venereal disease found in horses that usually results in infertility in mares and, on rare occasions, can cause mares to spontaneously abort. It is caused by the bacterium Taylorella equigenitalis.

Infected stallions while showing no clinical signs, can carry the bacteria for years. The ailment is commonly transmitted during sexual intercourse, but also may be transmitted indirectly through artificial insemination or contact with contaminated hands or objects.

The first horse in question came to the Kentucky farm from Texas, where it had been all of its breeding career prior to the move. The stallion had been bred to 44 mares both on the farm and by shipped semen. All breeding was done artificially. The KDA reported that during the 2008 breeding season, 22 stallions from various states were bred on that farm. Thirteen of the stallions were relocated to other states, and one was relocated to another facility in Kentucky. The USDA is in the process of locating those horses.
All horses on the affected farm, which is reported to be in Woodford County, have been quarantined.

The situation is critical enough that the Kentucky agriculture commissioner has asked the USDA to declare an agricultural emergency in the state. The request is a proactive measure to ensure that sufficient resources are available to manage the disease outbreak, Farmer said.

“It is important for the people of Kentucky to understand that this could be a serious situation in our signature equine industry,” he said.

“The state is working with federal authorities to contain the outbreak and determine its source.”

The first time CEM appeared in Kentucky was in 1978 one year after its discovery in England. Only then, the disease was found on Thoroughbred farms, something that could be devastating to the state’s No. 1 agricultural commodity. The disease was found in Missouri in 1979, but in both cases was quickly eradicated. The last reported U.S. case was in 2006.

A report by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) specially states, “CEM can have a devastating effect on equine reproductive efficiency. Should CEM become established in the United States, the horse industry would suffer great economic losses.”

Getting a handle on the outbreak is exactly what state officials are hoping. “The state is acting aggressively to contain and mitigate this disease,” Farmer said. “Our interstate and international trading partners can be confident that Kentucky will employ all necessary resources to deal with this situation.”

One shipment of horses from Kentucky to Brazil has already been halted due to the CEM discovery according to Rusty Ford, equine programs manager with the state veterinarian’s office. Both Brazil and Argentina have regulations prohibiting shipments of horse from countries where the disease has been found. Ford said the USDA was in talks to change the requirements to specify horses from CEM-free premises be allowed out of the country. The outcome of those talks was not known at press time.

While the disease has not been detected in Thoroughbred horses at this point, CEM is known to affect that breed more severely than others. The 1978 outbreak cost the industry millions of dollars and while mares can be successfully treated the process can takes months, something the horse industry in Kentucky doesn’t need right now.

The good news is researchers at UK’s Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center say CEM does not present an immediate risk of spread to the general horse population as long as state and federal regulations are followed. Researchers also noted that the disease is not spread by close physical contact or via airborne transmission.

A release from UK reported, “An investigation remains ongoing, and while additional horses from the farm may test positive, there is no evidence suggesting that the organism has spread beyond the group of mares and stallions first identified as at risk of exposure.”

For more, visit the KDA website at www.kyagr.com