Thehorse.com - Full Article
by: Erin Ryder, TheHorse.com News Editor
December 16 2008, Article # 13281
State and federal agriculture officials announced Dec. 16 that a Quarter Horse stallion standing at stud in Kentucky has tested positive for contagious equine metritis (CEM). As the United States is considered free of the highly contagious venereal infection (which can cause infertility and abortions, or can exist and spread subclinically), this raises two major issues: where did it come from, and will it affect equine transport, either interstate or internationally?
According to Rusty Ford, equine programs manager in the office of Kentucky State Veterinarian Robert Stout, DVM, the affected stallion is a 16-year-old Quarter Horse who came to a farm in Kentucky (the identity of which he cannot legally reveal) in February 2008, after being collected for breeding via artificial insemination in Texas. Twenty one other stallions, all Quarter Horses, stood at the Kentucky facility. The CEM causative organism, Taylorella equigenitalis, was discovered when the affected horse was examined prior to his semen being shipped to the European Union. All but eight of the stallions had shipped to other farms this summer, following the conclusion of the 2008 breeding season. One stallion had moved to another farm within Kentucky and the rest moved out of state.
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