Mosquitoes, flies, mosquitoes or ticks can be carriers of dangerous infectious agents and are therefore referred to as vectors. A team of veterinarians and parasitologists from the University Clinic for Horses and the Institute for Parasitology are investigating how widespread vector-borne infectious diseases are in horses in Austria.
"The more data we have from all over Austria, the better horse owners can assess the risk of dangerous pathogens," explains one of the project managers and equine vet Jessika Cavalleri.

So far there is only little data on the spread of vector-transmitted pathogens in equidae in Austria. In addition to the West Nile virus transmitted by mosquitoes, the most important vector-transmitted pathogens in horses in Central Europe include blood parasites transmitted by ticks (pathogens of equine piroplasmosis; pathogens of equine granulocytic anaplasmosis) and representatives of the Borrelia genus, in particular the pathogens of Lyme disease , Borrelia burgdorferi and parasitic pathogens (trypanosomes, such as Leishmania sp., Mundinia sp.) transmitted by sand flies and midges, which primarily attack immune cells of the skin and internal organs. Please help with your donation or become part of our Austria-wide scientific study. If you are a horse owner and would like to support our research project, you can find more information on the website of the University Clinic for Horses.

Please support our research project with your valuable donation – thank you very much!

Donation account:

University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna
IBAN AT43 2011 1800 8098 1000
BIC: GIBAATWWXXX
Purpose of use "Horses and vector-borne diseases"