Pneumonia caused by the bacteria Rhodococcus equi is an often-fatal disease that can be difficult to eradicate from affected farms. “The impact of this disease can be large because prevalence and case-fatality rates are often high; treatment is prolonged, expensive, associated with adverse effects, and not uniformly successful; the disease may diminish future performance; and farms reputed to have the disease can suffer loss of clients,” said Noah Cohen, VMD, PhD, associate professor at Texas A&M University. Cohen presented “How to Prevent and Control Pneumonia Caused by Rhodococcus equi at Affected Farms” at the 2002 American Association of Equine Practitioners’ convention.

“For most infectious diseases, control and prevention has a greater impact on the burden of disease than does treatment,” he said. When developing a program to reduce or prevent R. equi infections on an endemic farm or a farm with sporadic problems, resources must be considered. How much money does the farm have to spend on a prevention and control program? Are they able to change many management factors? Cohen reminded attendees that programs for control and prevention should not be expected to be 100% effective