Rossdales Laboratories

Detection of equine coronavirus in horses in the United Kingdom Jill Bryan1, Celia M Marr2, Catriona J Mackenzie2, Tim S Mair3, Adam Fletcher1, Robert Cash1, Monica Phillips1, Nicola Pusterla4, Samantha Mapes4 and Alastair K Foote1 1Rossdales Laboratories, Rossdale and Partners, Suffolk, UK 2Rossdales Equine Hospital and Diagnostic Centre, Suffolk, UK 3Bell Equine Veterinary Clinic, Maidstone, UK 4Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of...

Introduction Equine coronavirus (ECoV) is a Betacoronavirus that has been associated with disease in individual animals and groups of horses, and over the past seven years has been increasingly reported as a cause of disease outbreaks—primarily in adult horses in the USA and Japan.1–3 The main clinical signs associated with infection in adult horses are anorexia, lethargy and fever, with diarrhoea and mild colic signs less frequently reported.2 3 More serious complications associated with...

Tracheal wash sample neutrophilia is common in lower airway inflammation of various causes; however, relevance of cytomorphological features to culture of bacterial pathogens has not been established. To investigate whether the presence of nondegenerate or degenerate neutrophils in tracheal washes is associated with culture of bacteria and, if so, whether this is influenced by age or temporal factors.