Global equine influenza surveillance programs protect horse welfare by providing early warning of new viral strains, guiding vaccine updates, and enabling rapid outbreak response.
Surveillance programs protect horse welfare by enabling rapid response to new influenza variants before they spread globally. The 2007 Australian outbreak demonstrated how catastrophic equine influenza can be for a naive population - widespread illness, enormous disruption, and significant welfare harms across tens of thousands of horses. Effective surveillance that detected the novel strain early and enabled rapid implementation of control measures saved enormous aggregate welfare. Ongoing surveillance and vaccine updating prevents the gradual obsolescence of vaccines that would allow immunized horses to become increasingly susceptible to variant strains.