Latest research on African Horse Sickness planned to locate UK horses using NED!

[Cuffey]

Own goal DEFRA closing the database!
I cannot believe they did not know this research was in progress

http://www.vet.cam.ac.uk/news/ahs

African Horse Sickness is the most feared infectious viral horse disease, killing 90% of horses; it is transmitted by Culicoides biting midges, like Schmallenberg. The aim of our work was to estimate the risk of transmission of African horse sickness in Great Britain.
- The investigation was complicated by uncertainty in the location of the hosts as the National Equine Database records owner, rather than horse locations. Here we showed how it is possible to overcome this problem by exploiting the partial information available and demonstrate that mapping owner addresses as a proxy for horse location significantly underestimates the risk.
- The work identifies that if introduced in Britain, the disease could transmit widely in warm months. In addition, there are regions at increased risk of an outbreak of disease.
- Midge numbers are likely to increase with the presence of ruminants - this work explored under which conditions midges preferentially feeding on cattle and sheep might alter the risk of transmission.

 

[dianeholmes]

I always understood this was one of the reasons for the NED and passports. It is possible we may need to control and perhaps cull horses if the wrong disease enters our shores. I couldn't believe it when the government pulled the funding. It is a scenario that no one wants to even contemplate but did we learn nothing from foot and mouth - we need a tracking system for large animals.