Farchati Halifa, Merlin Aurelie, Saussac Mathilde, Dornier Xavier, Dhollande Mathilde, Garon David, Tapprest Jackie, Sala Carole
Laboratory for Animal Health in Normandy, Physiopathology and Epidemiology of Equine Diseases Unit, French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES), Goustranville, France.
University of Lyon - Epidemiology and Support to Surveillance Unit, ANSES, Lyon, France.
Front Vet Sci. 2021 Aug 23;8:701749. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2021.701749. eCollection 2021.
Identifying and tracking equines are key activities in equine health prevention. France is one of the few European countries with an operational centralized database that records information on equines, owners, and keepers but not on the location and keeping conditions of equines. The objective of our study was to collect information on keeping habits of equines and the relative location of a wide range of equines, owners, and keepers and discuss their implication for surveillance and control of outbreak improvement. A national email survey was conducted among the 1.9% of people registered as owners and 8.2% of people registered as keepers in the French national equine identification database having given their agreement to be contacted by email. It led to the collection of information from 728 owners, 121 keepers, and 2,669 owner-keepers. Most of them housed their equines in a single (smallest geographic administrative unit in France) at their home as private individuals. The distance between the of residence and of holding was, in most cases (including 79% of owners in the owner survey, 89.5% of the keepers in the keeper survey, and about 94% of the owner-keepers in both surveys), less than 30 km. More than half of the keepers kept a maximum of five equines and the majority with two different uses/destinations together, mostly leisure-retirement, leisure-breeding, leisure-sport, and sport-breeding. The main limitation of the study was that a relatively limited number of people ( = 3518) were reachable due to the low availability of an email address and contact agreement. Nonetheless, the findings provide an overview of how equines are kept by non-professional owners and keepers and complements information usually collected by the French riding institute. Additionally, information collected is very helpful to determine a realistic estimate of the spatial distribution of equines in France. This information is very important for the equine sector, for demographic knowledge and also improvement of surveillance plans and control measures and for the management and monitoring of health events to limit the spread of diseases.
识别和追踪马匹是马匹健康预防的关键活动。法国是少数几个拥有可运行的中央数据库的欧洲国家之一，该数据库记录有关马匹、所有者和饲养者的信息，但不记录马匹的位置和饲养条件。我们研究的目的是收集有关马匹饲养习惯以及广泛的马匹、所有者和饲养者的相对位置的信息，并讨论它们对疫情监测和控制改善的影响。在法国国家马匹识别数据库中，对1.9%注册为所有者和8.2%注册为饲养者且已同意通过电子邮件联系的人员进行了全国性电子邮件调查。调查收集了728名所有者、121名饲养者和2669名所有者兼饲养者的信息。他们中的大多数人作为私人个体将马匹饲养在其家中的一个市镇（法国最小的地理行政单位）。在大多数情况下（包括所有者调查中79%的所有者、饲养者调查中89.5%的饲养者以及两项调查中约94%的所有者兼饲养者），居住地与饲养地之间的距离小于30公里。超过一半的饲养者最多饲养五匹马，大多数饲养者将两种不同用途/目的地的马匹养在一起，主要是休闲 - 退休、休闲 - 繁殖、休闲 - 运动和运动 - 繁殖。该研究的主要局限性在于，由于电子邮件地址的可用性低和联系协议的原因，能够联系到的人数相对有限（n = 3518）。尽管如此，研究结果提供了非专业所有者和饲养者饲养马匹方式的概述，并补充了法国骑术协会通常收集的信息。此外，收集到的信息对于确定法国马匹空间分布的实际估计非常有帮助。这些信息对马匹行业、人口统计知识以及监测计划和控制措施的改进以及健康事件的管理和监测以限制疾病传播非常重要。
