Tick-Borne Disease: Tremendously Tricky in Horses

Thehorse.com - Full Article

By Natalie DeFee Mendik, MA
May 6, 2017

Learn the latest on diseases horses can get from ticks and why they continue to frustrate veterinarians and researchers


If the sight of a tick makes your skin crawl—even if it’s not crawling on your skin— you’re not alone. That feeling is founded on more than a natural aversion to arachnids; diseases transmitted by ticks can pose a real health threat. With Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maps outlining tick ranges throughout the majority of the United States, it’s important we brush up on our understanding of tick-borne diseases. In this article we’ll take a look at the three that pose the biggest risk to horses: Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and piroplasmosis.
Lyme Disease

Horse owners living in areas of the country heavily infested with Ixodes scapularis, commonly known as blacklegged ticks (also referred to as deer ticks or bear ticks), know these parasites are more than a nuisance. In these regions contracting Lyme disease from infected ticks is entirely possible for horses and humans alike.

Lyme disease is a very difficult disease to prevent, diagnose, and treat in horses, says Linda Mittel, MSPH, DVM, senior extension associate at Cornell University’s Animal Health Diagnostic Center, in Ithaca, New York. Horses contract Lyme disease when the spirochete (a type of bacterium) Borrelia burgdorferi is transmitted through the bite of an infected tick...

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http://www.thehorse.com/articles/37604/tick-borne-disease-tremendously-tricky-in-horses?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=reader-favorites&utm_campaign=05-19-2017