The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is responsible for ensuring transparency of the global animal disease situation by requiring reporting of occurrences of animal diseases of economic and public health importance by its member countries, as well as safeguarding the health and safe trade of animals and animal products by setting international standards documented in the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code (TAHC).

Incidents of disease introduction associated with international movement of live horses are sporadically reported to the OIE for immediate notification via the OIE World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS). From 1995 to 2014, 54 incidents were reported to the OIE. The immediate notification reports from the member countries were reviewed in conjunction with other information available in the public domain to provide the following analysis.

Equine influenza (13 events) and contagious equine metritis (12 events) were the most frequently reported diseases.

For seven events, the infected horses were detected during post-arrival quarantine and were not released into importing countries. The 47 other events resulted in the introduction of pathogens into importing