With the equestrian Olympic test events about to get underway at the Rio Deodora complex this week, it has come to light that two horses previously housed at the venue were diagnosed with glanders disease in April.
The Olympic Equestrian Centre at Deodoro Olympic Park, which will be the second largest concentration of competition venues during the Rio 2016 Games, was built for the Pan Am Games and since then has been used by the army to house military horses. A six-month quarantine of the site began in February and a Rio 2016 spokesman said the six-month "sanitary break" means there is no risk to horses competing in the test event, according to a report by the New Zealand Herald.
The two horses diagnosed were euthanised before further tests came back negative however the Brazilian government and international animal health authorities are taking further action and testing 584 horses from the army's riding school and surrounding farms for infection.
Only local horses will be participating in the test events at Deodoro which start on August 6th but representatives from 16 National Federations, including athletes and officials, will be travelling to the venue to take part in the Observers Programme, run concurrently with the Test Event, and no doubt this topic will be high on the agenda. National Performance Director Prue Barrett and Olympian Stuart Tinney will be representing Australia as part of the eventing delegation
Glanders is a zoonotic (able to be transferred to humans) infectious disease that occurs mostly in equines (horses, mules and donkeys) though it can also infect cats, dogs and goats. Infection usually occurs by consuming contaminated feed or water. Symptoms for the acute form include coughing, fever, nasal discharge, followed by septicaemia and ultimately death
Late last year the discovery of a horse in Germany testing positive to glanders resulted in the Australian Department of Agriculture suspending the importation of horses from Germany for a period of six months
