Getting to Grips with Strangles

On Wednesday May the 28^th Scotland plays host to the most eminent strangles vets in the world at a conference that will feature recent scientific advances in combating this destructive disease.

This ground breaking progress includes; news on the newly available blood test, DNA testing and forthcoming vaccine information, and has been made possible through the completion of the Streptococcus equi and Streptococcus zooepidemicus genome sequencing projects and their implication for the prevention of strangles.

The conference will be held in conjunction with a prestigious Havemeyer workshop where the expert veterinary surgeons and scientists lock themselves into a meeting and share their most recent ideas. The Dorothy Russell Havemayer Foundation of New York will only fund workshops where it is considered that there has been considerable scientific advances in furthering veterinary knowledge and it is a mark of distinction that Scotland and the UK have been chosen to host these events.

Speakers from the Royal Dick Vet Large Animal Hospital will be joined by vets from the Royal Veterinary College and scientists from the Animal Health Trust as well as veterinary experts from, Sweden and the USA who are at the cutting edge of combating strangles.

Delegates at the conference will hear about the management of outbreaks, the pathology of the disease and different international viewpoints on identifying carriers.

Strangles is the most commonly diagnosed infectious disease of horse’s world wide having a major welfare and economic impact in most countries.

Founded in 1979, the Dorothy Russell Havemeyer Foundation, Inc., is a private foundation that conducts scientific research to improve the general health and welfare of horses. The Foundation is currently focused on equine reproduction, behaviour, and infectious diseases and on the creation of an equine genetic map. The Foundation's founder and sole contributor was Dorothy Havemeyer McConville, also known as Dorothy Russell Havemeyer. The Foundation is based in New York.