The background to EGS

Equine grass sickness (EGS) is recognised as a debilitating and invariably fatal disease of horses with cases occurring predominantly, but not exclusively, in northern European countries, particularly Great Britain.

Although the phenomenon of EGS has been know to veterinary science for around 100 years and many aspects of its clinical and pathological significance have been studied, there are no accurate records of how frequently it occurs in the United Kingdom.

The need for surveillance

To address this shortcoming the Animal Health Trust is currently in the process of developing and implementing the first nationwide system for the surveillance of EGS to collect details of clinical cases and produce an accurate representation of the true frequency of the disease in Britain.  This is a joint project with: the Equine Grass Sickness Fund, the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies (Edinburgh) and the University of Liverpool following funding by the Horse Trust.  

The aims of the project

The project is based on the maintenance of a strictly confidential database of EGS affected premises within Great Britain.  The database will be used to retrospectively gather information regarding EGS occurrence on the premises, as well as promote and prospectively collect information on new cases.  As well as properly quantifying the true welfare impact of EGS, the investigation of trends in occurrence of disease over time and in different areas will be useful in calculating accurate sample size requirements for future EGS vaccine development.  This could be crucial for the prevention of this disease in the future.

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