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In the largest ever study of its kind into an equine pathogen, which was published today in the journal Microbial Genomics , scientists in 18 countries used the latest DNA sequencing techniques to track the bacteria
Streptococcus equi as it caused the disease strangles in horses around the world.
Strangles, caused by
Streptococcus equi, is the most frequently diagnosed infectious disease of horses, with 600 outbreaks estimated to occur in the United Kingdom each year.
Streptococcus equi invades the lymph nodes of head and neck, causing them to swell and form abscesses that can literally strangle, in around 2% of cases, the horse to death. Some of the horses that recover from strangles remain persistently infected. These apparently healthy animals shed bacteria into the environment and spread the disease to other horses with which they come into contact.