Borrelia burgdorferiinfections with special reference to horses. A review

Abstract

Summary This review discusses the literature on B. burgdorferi infections in view of the rising incidence of this infection in general and the increasing concerns of horse owners and equine practitioners. Lyme disease, the clinical expression of Borrelia infections in man is an important health problem. The geographic distribution of B. burgdorferi infections in equidae should resemble that of human cases because the vector tick involved, Ixodes ricinus, feeds on both species and, indeed, the infection has been established many times in horses. However, a definite diagnosis of the disease "Lyme borreliosis" in human beings as well as in horses and other animals is often difficult to accomplish. Although a broad spectrum of clinical signs has been attributed to B. burgdorferi infections in horses, indisputable cases of equine Lyme borreliosis are extremely rare so far, if they exist at all.

Lyme borreliosis in the horse: A mini-review

“…Such variation might also occur due to infection with different genospecies of B. burgdorferi as has been seen in case of human beings (Butler et al, 2005).…”

“…Subsequently, in 1976 Burgdorfer and his associates first time reported the etiologic agent of this disease and also performed an epidemiological evaluation on a cluster of children suffering with arthritis in the city Old Lyme, Connecticut, USA. This became the first report on Lyme disease (Mast & Burrows 1976;Steere et al, 1977;Burgdorfer et al, 1982;Butler et al, 2005;Steere 2006;Staneck et al, 2012).…”

“…The presence of viable B. burgdorferi spirochetes observed in clinically healthy horse's urine in an endemic region (Manion et al, 1998) has raised concern whether non-tick transmission of this bacterium may occur by direct urine/mucosal contact (Butler et al, 2005).…”

“…Besides, avoiding tick-infested areas as well as careful grooming of the horse for early removal of ticks are the best preventive measures. For prevention of tick-infestation, various kind of insecticidal sprays can be used but most of these have not been approved for horses and also their efficacy is unproven yet (Butler et al, 2005). However, the use of canine tick sprays on horses till so far has not revealed any adverse effects (Divers et al, 2001).…”

“…Antibodies can be detected at 5-6 weeks in Ponies exposed to ticks infected with B. burgdorferi, with the highest antibody levels induced at 3 months after exposure (Chang et al, 2000). Preference might be given to culture of B. burgdorferi from equine skin biopsies (Chang et al, 2000) combined with a two-step serology protocol (ELISA or IFAT supplemented by protein immunoblotting like Western blot or reverse line blot) (Trevejo et al, 1999;Magnarelli et al, 2000;Butler et al, 2005).…”