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Geographical distribution

Based on official disease reports to the WOAH

Glanders is a disease listed in the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Terrestrial Animal Health Code and must be reported to the WOAH. The map to the right displays outbreak points reported to the WOAH early warning system since 2005.

As described in the WOAH Terrestrial Animal Health Code, the WOAH early warning system includes immediate notifications and follow-up reports on:

  • First occurrences of a listed disease,
  • Recurrence of an eradicated listed disease,
  • First occurrences of new strain of a pathogenic agent of a listed disease,
  • Recurrence of an eradicated strain,
  • Sudden and unexpected changes in the distribution or increase in incidence or virulence of, or morbidity or mortality caused by the pathogenic agent of a listed disease
  • Occurrence of a listed disease in an unusual host species.

Countries are coloured according to the available information regarding their stable disease situation (disease situation legend). This information is provided by countries through the WOAH monitoring system, which is a different reporting channel.
The disease situations (country/region colours) are prioritized in the following order: Present, Suspected and Absent if more than one is present in a country during the filtered period.
Immediate notifications (points) and disease situation (country/region colours) are reported to the WOAH in different spatial and temporal scales, and therefore are displayed in the map as layers which can be filtered independently.

Last updated at: 2024-04-22

For more up to date reports, visit the original data source: WOAH-WAHIS.

Epi studies

Epidemiological studies investigating disease dynamics and measures of disease frequency

The panel to the right shows the distribution of epidemiological studies collected in the literature review. Click on the map to see more information about the studies. The following study context categories are considered:

  • Case reports
  • Passive surveillance (reports of specific surveillance activities following reported cases)
  • Evidence of disease freedom (investigations to confirm disease absence)
  • Observational study (case-control or cohort studies)
  • Active surveillance (active testing of animals and search for cases)
  • Survey (designed sampling and testing of animals)

It is important to note that studies targetting humans were NOT included in the systematic literature reviews.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Disease

Animal Health Impact

A summary of the disease in animal hosts is given in the WOAH Technical disease card.

The panel to the right summarizes evidence collected from published studies describing natural infections with this agent (as opposed to experimental infections, summarized in dedicated section).

It is important to note that studies targetting humans were NOT included in the systematic literature reviews.

Public Health

Glanders is a zoonosis and humans may become infected either directly through close contact with infected animals or indirectly via secretions, fomites or for example contaminated water or food {ref0033:Euro Surveill 2004.

For further information, visit the CDC page on Glanders), or the WOAH (panel to the right).

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering studies investigating natural infections with this agent, and published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Experimental Inf.

Glanders is a disease caused by the bacteria Burkholderia mallei. Many animal species are known to be susceptible but disease generally occur in horses, donkeys and mules. Infections may cause ulcerations and nodules on the skin and in the respiratory tract and there are four different clinical presentations. The nasal and pulmonay forms, where clincical signs include nasal discharge, cough, fever and dyspnoea. These forms tend to be acute. A cutaneous form, also referred to as farcy, also exists where infected animals develop enlarged lymph nodes, nodular abscesses or dry ulcers. This form tend to be more chronic in nature. Nodules may also form in other internal organs, subsequently leading to wasting and eventually death. Asymptomatic carriers are also possible. Donkeys and mules tend to develop the acute respiratory forms and horses more often develop the chronic or asymtomatic forms (WOAH).

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experimental infection studies describing the health effects of this pathogen in host animal species. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

  • Host species
  • Start of clinical signs (incubation period)
  • Duration of clinical signs
  • All diverse types of clinical signs reported in the different host species
  • Case fatality
  • Meta-analysis of the reported duration of observable clinical signs, accounting for censoring in the experimental infection study groups

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all experimental infections published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Agent

Taxonomy

Family: Burkholderiaceae

Genus: Burkholderia

Species: Burkholderia mallei

Bacterial characteristics

Burkholderia mallei is a Gram-negative aerobic bacterium WOAH Technical disease card

Agent survival outside living hosts

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experiments on pathogen survival. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

  • Survival plots indicating the maximum number of days the bacterium was detected in different matrices under different conditions (temperature)
  • Half-life studies which documented bacterium viability decay over time under different temperatures
  • Meta-analysis of the reported bacterium survival period for matrices in which a sufficient number of studies were found

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering pathogen survival experiments published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Transmission

Transmission occurs through contaminated feed or water, through aerosols or via fomites such as riding tack. Dermal transmission through abarasions in the skin or through the mucosal membranes is also possible. Over-crowding and poor sanitation predisposes are known risk factors for disease transmission. The incubation period varies from a few days to several months WOAH Technical disease card.

The panel to the right summarizes all evidence collected by EFSA from published experimental infection studies describing host infectiousness. Scroll down through the content.

Summaries of available scientific evidence are provided concerning:

  • Evidence of Host-host transmission
  • Evidence of transplacentary transmission
  • Meta-analysis of the reported duration of the infectious period, accounting for censoring in the experimental infection study groups
  • Data for all animal matrices in which agent presence was demonstrated.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all experimental infections published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

*The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Diagnosis

Glanders can be diagnosed using by identifying the disease causing bacteria using either bacterial culture or Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Serological tests such as the Complement fixation test (CFT) is also available and infected animals test positive on CFT approximately one week following infection. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and Immunoblot assays are available but are not yet fully validated, (WOAH, Terrestrial Manual).

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, covering diagnostic tests approved for use in the European Union (EU).

Data were collected from all evaluations of performance of those tests which provided sensitivity or specificity (or enough data to estimate those needed to be provided). You can browse through the data collected scrolling the panel to the right.

We have chosen not to aggregate and summarize the results because the study conditions can vary greatly. Instead, we present the results for all the articles retrieved from the literature individually, grouped by type of test, diagnostic target and, when relevant, animal species.

You can download all data collected through systematic literature review here. Data fields are explained in this read-me file.

The review was last updated in November 2023. The complete list of references is available for download here. If important references to primary studies are missing, contact animal-diseases@efsa.europa.eu. The full review protocol can be downloaded here.

Vaccination

There is no available vaccine for Glanders.

EFSA conducts regular systematic literature reviews covering all vaccine efficacy studies published in peer-reviewed literature in English since 1970, when evaluating vaccines approved for use in the European Union. The next update of the SLR for vaccines is scheduled to be carried out in 2024.

Picture on the right: Bengt Ekberg, Swedish National Veterinary Institute (www.sva.se)

Treatments

There are no available treatments and due to the nature of the disease, treatment is contraindicated.

Animal Health Law Risk Assessments

Glanders is listed as a category A diseases in the "Animal Health Law" - Regulation (EU) 2016/429 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on transmissible animal diseases and amending and repealing certain acts in the area of animal health.

EFSA has published a series of Scientific Opinions on risk assessment of several scientific topics within the framework of AHL, upon request by the European Comission (EC). You can browse through the AHL legislations and EFSA’s Scientific Opinions on the right panel.

EFSA Journal
Consult the available risk assessments in full through the links below:

Other Risk Assessments

EFSA regularly carries out risk assessments to support risk managers with their decision making on the prevention and control of diseases. Risk assessments of relevance for this disease are listed in the right panel

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

The CoVetLab consortium has been responsible for the systematic literature reviews since 2015, and has delivered story maps to EFSA since 2021. Partners are: Swedish National Veterinary Institute (SVA, Sweden); Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR, The Netherlands); Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA; UK) and the University of Surrey (UK).

Geographical distribution data has been kindly provided by the World Organisation of Animal Health (WOAH). WOAH-WAHIS (WOAH World Animal Health Information System) is the original source of these data.

References

The list of references displayed in this storymap is available on the right panel.

You can also download the complete list of references for each of the seven specific knowledge domains for which EFSA carries out systematic literature reviews regularly (living reviews):