Animal cruelty/ Possible Equine Influenza (flu)

I'll start off by providing a definition to the word "influenza" so we are all on the same page.

According to Wikipedia,
"Influenza is an infectious disease ... that affects birds and mammals."

For those of us living in or that have visited Nigeria (Lagos) recently, you would have noticed that we have a number of unhealthy and unkept horses lingering around some of our streets. They have been abandoned by their owners and what's worse is they have been maltreated before being "disposed." I am not an animal activist, however I feel so much pain when I see a sick horse along side the road (especially when they are also surrounded by bruises on their feet and backs).


Then (with my beautifully wide imagination) I start making out the cause/ result of certain weirdly looking wounds on the horses. My most recently thought of, is cancer or some sort of virus infestation.

(Don't be shy to laugh...but when you are done, think about it again)



I mean we are lucky in Nigeria that we haven't had an influenza epidemic before. We know of swine flu (caused by pigs) and avian flu (caused by birds), but how are you sure there's no such thing as a HORSE FLU?!

Well, I've done a little research and learnt there IS actually a horse flu. It's known as EQUINE INFLUENZA. This is what I gathered from About.com (http://horses.about.com/od/commonproblems/p/influenza.htm).

• the virus is contracted when horses are not vaccinated.
• air-bourne.
• spreads very quickly
• highly contagious

According to a little more research (Wikipedia kinda research :p), the virus "is historically not known to affect humans," however "viruses can cross the species barrier to cause an epizootic disease in humans, and recently in dogs" ... don't even get me started on the amount of stray dogs around #rollingmyeyes#

I did read somewhere else too that dogs can catch the horse's virus (so good thing we take dog vaccination a bit more seriously in naija).

Anyhow, I'm not saying this to scare anyone (though I may have scared myself a little more than I thought). I just think we need to be a bit more careful (health-wise). If anyone knows any person in government that is involved with animal rights/ protection, please let them help us get these sick animals off the streets. Let's not wait till a major outbreak falls our way (God forbid sha).

Thank you.

Signed,

A very concerned animal lover