Vet World   Vol.10   December-2017  Article-4

Cryptic etiopathological conditions of equine nervous system with special emphasis on viral diseases

Background and Aim: The importance of horse (Equus caballus) to equine practitioners and researchers cannot be ignored. An unevenly distributed population of equids harbors numerous diseases, which can affect horses of any age and breed. Among these, the affections of nervous system are potent reason for death and euthanasia in equids. Many episodes associated with the emergence of equine encephalitic conditions have also pose a threat to human population as well, which signifies their pathogenic zoonotic potential. Intensification of most of the arboviruses is associated with sophisticated interaction between vectors and hosts, which supports their transmission. The alphaviruses, bunyaviruses, and flaviviruses are the major implicated groups of viruses involved with equines/humans epizootic/epidemic. In recent years, many outbreaks of deadly zoonotic diseases such as Nipah virus, Hendra virus, and Japanese encephalitis in many parts of the globe addresses their alarming significance. The equine encephalitic viruses differ in their global distribution, transmission and main vector species involved, as discussed in this article. The current review summarizes the status, pathogenesis, pathology, and impact of equine neuro-invasive conditions of viral origin. A greater understanding of these aspects might be able to provide development of advances in neuro-protective strategies in equine population.

Keywords: bacterial diseases, seroprevalence, viral diseases.

How to cite this article: Kumar R, Patil RD (2017) Cryptic etiopathological conditions of equine nervous system with special emphasis on viral diseases, Veterinary World, 10(12): 1427-1438.

Received: 25-07-2017  Accepted: 30-10-2017     Published online: 10-12-2017

Corresponding author: Rakesh Kumar   E-mail: rkvetpath@gmail.com

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2017.1427-1438

Copyright: Kumar and Patil, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.