1. Can horses be clinically screened for West Nile Fever?
- Author
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A. B. Cay, Agnès Leblond, F. Dal Pozzo, L. Calozet, Hélène Amory, Claude Saegerman, P. Tritz, G. van Galen, Sarah Rebecca Porter, Université de Liège, Unité de Recherche d'Épidémiologie Animale (UR EpiA), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Membre du Conseil Scientifique et Technique, Réseau d'Epidémio-Surveillance en Pathologie Équine (RESPE), Clinique Vétérinaire, Sciensano [Bruxelles], and Réseau International des Instituts Pasteur (RIIP)
- Subjects
Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Disease clusters ,Clinical variables ,040301 veterinary sciences ,West Nile virus ,030231 tropical medicine ,medicine.disease_cause ,Disease Outbreaks ,Diagnosis, Differential ,gestion sanitaire ,0403 veterinary science ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Epidemiology ,medicine ,Animals ,Mass Screening ,Horses ,Infection surveillance ,Mass screening ,[SDV.BA.MVSA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology/Veterinary medicine and animal Health ,General Veterinary ,business.industry ,Outbreak ,04 agricultural and veterinary sciences ,General Medicine ,Virology ,3. Good health ,Europe ,Case-Control Studies ,Female ,Horse Diseases ,Nervous System Diseases ,business ,Sentinel Surveillance ,West Nile Fever ,Demography - Abstract
In Europe, the frequency of West Nile Fever (WNF) outbreaks in horses and/or human beings is on the increase, especially in mid-eastern and southern Europe (Dauphin and others 2004, Rabel and others 2011). However, in several western European countries no activity of the virus has been detected so far, for example, in The Netherlands (Rockx and others 2006), Belgium and the UK (Morgan 2006)). However, considering the presence of migratory birds and suitable vectors in those countries, and the reports of changing epidemiology of the virus (Petersen and Marfin 2005, Blitvich 2008), the West Nile virus (WNV) is a genuine threat. Horses are considered good sentinels for WNV infection surveillance (Petersen and Marfin 2005) by the use of syndromic surveillance followed by laboratory confirmation. Syndromic surveillance aims at early identification of disease clusters before laboratory confirmation, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality (Leblond and others 2007). Clinical signs of WNF in horses are, however, difficult to distinguish from those of other neurological diseases (Leblond and others 2007, Porter and others 2011). The aim of this study was to identify clinical variables that could be indicators for WNF in horses, which will be attempted …
- Published
- 2013
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