Zoonoses: What Horse Owners Need to Know

Horse owners who are familiar with the zoonoses that affect horses are in a much better position to prevent them. Here’s what you need to know.
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Reprinted from The Horse Report with permission from the Center for Equine Health, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis.

Zoonoses—diseases that can be transmitted to humans from animals—are a concern for all who live or work with animals. Our common ancestry with animals means that we share much of the same biochemistry and therefore much of the same susceptibilities. Humans and animals are at risk for cancer because our bodies are made up of large numbers of cells. If a mutation makes a single cell deaf to the needs of its body, it can develop a tumor.

Our common ancestry with animals is also the source of many dangerous infectious diseases. You might not think you have all that much in common with a chicken, but to an influenza virus humans and birds are promising hosts alike. In fact, 70% of infectious diseases in humans got their start in animals. Conversely, animals can acquire diseases such as tuberculosis from humans.

The connections between the health of humans, animals, and the environments in which they live have been known for ages. Hippocrates recognized that environmental factors can impact human health and that public health depends on a clean environment. In the nineteenth century, the physician Rudolf Virchow recognized the link between diseases of humans and animals and coined the term zoonosis. He said, “Between animal and human medicine there are no dividing lines—nor should there be

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