Human Injuries Associated with the Transport of Horses by Road.

Animals (Basel). May 2023;13(10):.

Christopher B Riley¹, Barbara Padalino², Chris W Rogers³, Kirrilly R Thompson⁴

¹ Department of Clinical Studies, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada.; ² Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-Alimentari, Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Viale Fanin 50, 40126 Bologna, Italy.; ³ School of Veterinary Science, Massey University, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand.; ⁴ School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW 2300, Australia.

Abstract

There is an increased understanding of shared human-animal risk in terms of "one welfare", whereby when animals are at risk, so are people, so preventing injury to one species may also prevent injury to the other. Because transport-related injuries to horses are common, the authors considered this paradigm to study road equine transport-related injuries to humans in New Zealand. The aim was to determine their frequency and associated factors by distributing a survey to horse industry participants through industry organisations asking about their horse activities, road transport experiences, and any related self-injury. There were 112/1067 (10.5%) handlers injured while preparing (13/112), loading (39/112), traveling (6/112), or unloading (33/112). Of these, 40% had multiple injury types, and 33% had several body regions affected. Hand injuries were most common (46%), followed by the foot (25%), arm (17%), and head or face (15%). Median recovery time was 7 days. Injuries were associated with the responder's industry educational background, years of driving experience, and reporting a horse injured during road transport in the past two years. Wearing helmets and gloves, and adopting strategies designed to eliminate equine injuries associated with the road transport of horses to reduce the risk of injury to their handlers are recommended.

Keywords

equine; horse; human; injury; one welfare; risk; road; transport; transportation;

Article Tools:

Medline

Email to me

Archives Highlights:

Use of Dog Serologic Data for Improved Understanding of Coccidioidomycosis: A One Health Approach.
The overall seropositivity rate among tested dogs was 37.6%. Average test positivity rates in states with =0.5 tests per annum per 10,000 households were 35.4% (Texas) to 74.1% (Montana). For these states, average annual incidence per 10,000 households was as follows: Arizona (86.8), New Mexico (0.89), Nevada (0.78), California (0.75), Montana (0.63), Colorado (0.41), Oregon (0.41), Texas (0.38), Idaho (0.37), Wyoming (0.34), Utah (0.32), and Washington (0.26). Human incidence in California and Arizona between 2012 and 2022 was significantly correlated with dog incidence.

Aseptic protocol breaches are common among veterinary students scrubbing, gowning, and gloving into surgery.
At least 1 aseptic protocol breach (APB) was noted in 46.3% of the 96 procedures observed. The most common mistakes noted were contact of the sterile towel onto nonsterile surfaces (17.7%), contact of the gown with nonsterile surfaces (17.7%), touching sterile objects with bare hands (12.5%), and improper scrubbing technique (17.4%).

Prevalence of Encephalitozoon hellem among companion and exhibition birds in Japan.
Although microsporidia can rarely cause severe systemic infections, including hepatitis, nephritis, and enteritis in young birds, most infected birds are subclinical and thought to recover spontaneously after a period of temporary spore shedding if they do not have immunosuppression. Microsporidia can cause self-limiting infection in immunocompetent humans and life-threatening chronic diarrhea in immunocompromised individuals.

Resolution of egg binding is possible in most client-owned parrots when multiple treatment strategies are considered.
Of the 150 events that had complete follow-up, 109 (72.7%) resulted in a successful outcome. A successful outcome was observed in 44 of 133 events (33.1%) that were initially managed medically without resorting to additional treatment strategies, in 31 events (86.1%) managed with mechanical assistance, in 20 events (60.6%) managed surgically, and in 12 events (85.7%) managed with ovocentesis.

Head tilt in 6 Ankole-Watusi cattle (Bos taurus ankole) with chronic exudative cornual sinusitis.
Clinically, 4 of the 6 cases had concurrent otitis at the time of initial clinical observation. Medical management was the standard across all cases with limited surgical success in 2 cases. Due to intractable and progressive clinical signs despite treatment attempts, euthanasia and postmortem examinations were performed.