A new initiative has been launched to support vets and professionals with tackling the stigma of Strangles.
Launched at this month’s National Equine Forum, vets, farriers, equine dentists and all professionals who come into frequent contact with horses, can take a new online Stamp Out Strangles Pledge.
The Vets & Professionals Pledge is designed to help you make your own individual, public promise to adhere to and promote good hygiene practices. The Pledge involves committing to three simple steps that could really help the industry ramp up its biosecurity and accelerate change; these include checking your own biosecurity practices regularly, helping make biosecurity a normal topic of conversation with clients and signposting them to further advice where necessary.
Pledgers are featured on an interactive map demonstrating the growing UK-wide (and even global) support for better biosecurity, so far including individuals from Rossdales, the British Horseracing Authority and the German Equestrian Federation. Pledgers also receive quarterly emails containing the latest information and research into Strangles to help themselves and their clients stay one step ahead of the disease.
Take the Pledge here.
The launch of the Pledge coincided with the announcement of a new national week of action – Strangles Awareness Week – created by a unique alliance between the Animal Health Trust, the British Horse Society, Keeping Britain’s Horses Healthy, Redwings Horse Sanctuary, The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and World Horse Welfare.
The new week is due to run between 4th and 10th May, and as well as taking the Pledge, there will be ways for vets and their practices to get involved.
While planning for Strangles Awareness Week is being adapted constantly in line with Government advice regarding Covid-19, these unprecedented times present an unrivalled opportunity to educate yard managers and horse owners on disease control. For now, action will be primarily focussed online with the whole equestrian community being invited to share their experiences of Strangles via social media throughout the Week, while the member organisations will be providing key facts and dispelling popular myths about the disease.
As well as telling their own stories, vets can show their support by sharing Strangles Awareness Week content on their social media pages, or downloading images – including specially created Facebook and Twitter cover images for Facebook and Twitter pages – to use during the Week to help encourage as many people as possible to join in.
An editable Powerpoint presentation, recently updated with the latest research by Dr Andrew Waller, Head of Bacteriology Research at the Animal Health Trust, will also be made available to download for free for use in clients’ evenings. While any such public events are likely to be postponed for the foreseeable future, the slides will make a fantastic edition to any future evenings centred on biosecurity and infectious disease.
All downloadable images and presentations will be made available from the Redwings web page for Strangles Awareness Week.
For further information on how you and your practice could get involved with Strangles Awareness Week, email campaigns@redwings.co.uk