CEM - Where Are We, How Did We Get There, and Where Are We Going?

Where are we, and how did we get here?
Contagious equine metritis (CEM) is well known to all of us. The more senior members will remember its discovery as a new equine disease in 1977, whilst the younger delegates will not have even been born then. As such, to them, its clinical relevance may be as nothing more than ‘a notifiable disease that you will never see’. Somewhere between these 2 extremes is where we are, and must remain.

As stated above CEM was discovered in the UK in 1977. This primary venereal bacterial disease in horses affected over 100 mares and several stallions in Newmarket over a 2-year period. It is caused by Taylorella equigenitalis, a fastidious organism, that in order to culture requires microaerophilic conditions in haemolysed blood agar in an atmosphere of 10% carbon dioxide. Most isolates are recognisable after 3–4 days, hence culture being routinely run for 7 days. [...]