A new large animal isolation ward designed to better manage the care of horses with infectious diseases will be dedicated today at Tufts’ Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. The new facility represents a strong collaboration between the basic- and clinical-science divisions of New England’s only veterinary school.

The 3,300 square-foot facility triples the capacity for clinicians at the Cummings School’s Hospital for Large Animals to manage infectious diseases, ranging from salmonellosis, strangles, and equine herpesvirus-1 in horses to cryptosporidiosis in calves, goats, and alpacas.

Currently, the Hospital for Large Animals’ isolation facility consists of two stalls. With more than 12% of the hospital’s incoming patients suspected of having infectious diseases, potentially contagious animals would be denied admission if both stalls were full. Each of the six stalls in the new isolation facility will be self-contained with separate ventilation units, and two feature hoists to aid animals with neurologic signs.

The $3.7-million facility was designed by Gregory J. O’Connor and Associates of Worcester, Mass., and built by C.E. Floyd Company of Bedford, Mass., to match the brick and copper roof of the Cummings School’s Foster Hospital for Small Animals and Hospital for Large Animals. The new facility was funded by a gift from The Manton Foundation