14 February 2025

Your horse deserves the BEST

Strangles Awareness Week encourages everyone who cares for horses to do the BEST to protect them from Strangles with four preventative actions:

Boost immunity with Strangles vaccination

Engage with trusted information

Separate unfamiliar horses

Temp-check routinely

In this blog, we find out more about Strangles vaccination and how it has the potential to help us prevent and control the spread of disease like never before!

A new Strangles vaccine was launched in the UK in 2022. It took more than 20 years to develop and both pre-launch trials and early field data indicate that vaccination is both safe and effective. Vaccinated horses either do not develop signs of Strangles following exposure to the disease, or experience milder and more short-lived effects.

When used in partnership with other good biosecurity practices, the vaccine has the potential to make a huge difference to reduce the number and severity of Strangles cases in our equine population, saving lives, costs, and worry.

The new vaccine has several practical advantages over previous products that helped to boost a horse’s immune system against Streptococcus Equi bacteria, which causes Strangles.

The vaccine is administered by a vet through straightforward intramuscular injection, usually into the horse’s neck.
Just two initial injections given four weeks apart complete the primary course.
Single booster injections can then be given at required intervals to maintain an effective degree of immunity against infection.
Less than 2% of vaccinated horses showed any adverse reaction to the injection. Those who did experienced mild localised swelling and/or a slightly raised temperature, both of which are considered completely normal and resolved within a couple of days.
The vaccine contains no live Strangles bacteria and it is effective against a broad range of different strains of the disease known to be circulating in the UK.
A vaccinated horse will not trigger positive results if tested for infection. This means that vets can use a full range of diagnostic tests (including blood tests, swabs and guttural pouch endoscopy) as part of screening new horses to a yard or managing a Strangles outbreak.

No vaccine can be 100% effective but data suggests that more than 90% of horses benefit from protection once vaccinated. In one Strangles outbreak on a yard of 85 horses, only 2 of the 22 vaccinated horses showed signs of illness (9%) while 52 of the 63 unvaccinated horses developed disease symptoms (83%).

Vaccination is an exciting, important new tool in our efforts to prevent horses suffering the misery of Strangles infection and protect horses and equestrian yards from the cost, anxiety and disruption of an outbreak.

For more information about Strangles vaccination and how it could benefit you and your horse, contact your vet.