According to Equine Canada, the World Organization for Animal Health has reported that a new case of Contagious Equine Metritis was confirmed in the United States, on July 21, 2011.
The CEM case was detected in a four-year old stallion in Arizona and was identified during testing for semen export. The United States Department of Agriculture is still investigating the source of the outbreak as of this date.
CEM is a venereal disease of horses and has not been detected in Canada.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has legislated specific importation requirements which address the potential risk of CEM for equine semen, embryos, and live horses from every state in the U.S. into Canada. These requirements were put in place in 2009 to protect the Canadian herd following a U.S. outbreak at that time.
The CFIA has reported the import requirements will remain in effect, with no additional restrictions required. The CFIA is in contact with the USDA and will be monitoring future developments. Considering that this is a very recent notification and the investigation is ongoing, the CFIA has indicated that it is too early to determine how this event will influence the maintenance of CEM-related import conditions in the long-term.
Equine Canada will continue to be in contact with the CFIA and post all updates regarding CEM on its website.
To read more about importation conditions and other useful information, visit the February 2011 health alert on the Equine Canada website.