The British Horse Society (BHS) has commended the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh for its offer of at-cost strangles tests to horse owners and farm managers in Scotland. These tests, designed for establishing strangles-free status, are part of an effort to control the spread the disease in Scotland.

The offer follows a recent successful international Strangles Conference held in Edinburgh when BHS Scotland presented a video endoscope to the vet school.

Professor Paddy Dixon said: “The Strangles Conference reinforced the message that careful biosecurity and adhering to STEPS (the Strategy to Eradicate and Prevent Strangles) are currently our best weapons in controlling this infection while we await the development of an effective strangles vaccine.

“The BHS is aware that there are reports of horses being moved from infected yards to other yards, incredibly even during an active outbreak,” Dixon continued.” Therefore we have decided that we should offer to carry out tests–endoscopy and lavage of the guttural pouches–to obtain samples for bacteriology and PCR (polymerase chain reaction test) examinations, at the Animal Health Trust (AHT), Newmarket, that establishes the infection status of any horse