Probably the most popular AAEP committee meeting that is held during the Convention each year is for the Infectious Disease Committee (sometimes referred to as IDC). In Episode 72 of the Disease Du Jour podcast, we talk to the IDC’s chair Sally Anne DeNotta, DVM, PhD, DACVIM. DeNotta is a clinical assistant professor of large animal internal medicine at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. She also is the course coordinator of Practice-Based Equine Clerkships, which is a course at U of FLA that pairs US veterinary students with equine field veterinarians to provide hands-on, real-life practice opportunities. She has special interests in clinical neurology and infectious disease.
EquiManagement’s Disease Du Jour podcast is focused on equine research and current best practices. Disease Du Jour is brought to you in 2021 by Merck Animal Health.
DeNotta talked about what the AAEP Infectious Disease Committee does and who participates in the committee’s work throughout the year. AAEP members and researchers who have an interest in a specific disease or equine condition can volunteer to serve on the committee or work with a subcommittee on a specific issue.
One of the most visible tasks of the IDC is to produce resources on specific diseases that are used not only by AAEP members, but the entire equine industry. Those resources are reviewed and updated every three years or as needed. These resources can be found on the AAEP website or the AAEP app.
In 2022, one of the most heavily used resources is being reviewed: internal parasite prevention guidelines. Dr. Martin Neilsen of the Gluck Equine Research Center is heading a subcommittee on revising these guidelines. One of the key topics is trying to quantify anthelmintic resistance in horses.
Also discussed at the meeting and in this podcast was the neurologic equine herpesvirus outbreak in Europe as well as the neurologic cases in the United States. An important discovery by Dr. Nicola Pusterla was that in a neurologic outbreak in Pennsylvania that a new EHV-1 strain was identified.
Dr. Angela Pelzel-McCluskey via teleconference gave an overview report from the regulatory standpoint. DeNotta emphasized the importance of Pelzel-McCluskey’s work and her ability to offer information to the equine industry. You can find a copy of Pelzel-McCluskey’s report to read or download here or by clicking on the image below.
There are topics of extreme importance to equine veterinarians and the entire industry in this report, including the iatrogenic spread of EIA and piroplasmosis in unsanctioned racing of Quarter Horses, Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds.
Pelzel-McCluskey also noted that VEE could be a problem in the future for the US equine population.
The Disease Du Jour podcasts in 2021 often focused on topics of importance to field veterinarians. In 2022, we will focus a number of topics on skills useful to veterinarians early in their careers.
To that point, DeNotta mentioned in the podcast that the AAEP will host a New Practitioners Symposium in February 2022 at the University of Florida.
EquiManagement’s Disease Du Jour
podcast is focused on equine research
and current best practices. Disease Du Jour
is brought to you in 2021 by Merck Animal Health.
