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Sudden death of horses: IHP lodges a complaint with the public Prosecutor’s Office

19/03/2019

The medical report of the post mortem carried out on the ninth horse, which died on 21 February, was released on 18 March. That is, one and a half months following the sudden death of 8 horses between 31 December and 3 January. The investigations carried out by the Pisa Istituto Zooprofilattico Lazio & Toscana did not reveal any precise cause of death: abnormal lesions in the trachea and bronchial passages, and some heart lesions were noted, but nothing which directly indicated a death so sudden and without any prior symptoms. Numerous toxic substances were tested for, as well as bacterial and viral infections, plus analysis of hay, but all proved negative. This means that many potential causes have been eliminated, but without throwing any light on the actual cause of death. Furthermore, at this point it seems unlikely that the death of the ninth horse can be linked with those of the others at the beginning of the year.

The Pisa laboratory is currently carrying out a series of tests on the samples from the 8 horses, hoping to identify some causes. These samples, initially frozen and held by the University of Bologna and the Istituto Zooprofilattico of Bologna (where the autopsies were carried out) will now be sent to Pisa. This move was agreed at a meeting of the Director of the Unità Operativa Sanità Animale, ASL Toscana Nordovest, the Director of the Ministry of Health Animal Welfare Office the Regione Toscana ‘allevamenti e igiene urbana veterinaria’ and the Direttore Sanitario of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Lazio and Toscana. During that meeting, in addition to the decision to transfer the samples from Bologna to Pisa, other things were decided: in particular it was considered both necessary and urgent to alert ARPAT (Agenzia regionale per la protezone ambientale della Toscana) in order to ascertain the presence or otherwise of contamination; in addition a more detailed gathering and coordinating of data was requested, including data from other tests and analyses (viz on 25 February, the ASL of Volterra had taken blood samples from 25 horses at the Rescue Centre, together with hay, feed and water samples).

To date nothing is known about the analyses of selenium and vitamin E levels, nothing is yet known about the analysis of the water available to the horses, and there is no news regarding any findings from ARPAT.

“This is an unacceptable situation”, commented Sonny Richichi, President of IHP. "It leaves us both perplexed and bewildered, especially when we read in the local press that the authorities are thinking of closing the investigation. For this reason we have decided that, in addition to writing the nth request for information to the local health authorities, we have decided to present a detailed complaint to the Pisa Prosecutor’s office (who have already opened a file on this case of the mysterious death of the horses) detailing the facts of this affair, reconstructing step by step what has been witnessed by many who were physically present, or who have furnished us with relevant information. We can never accept that the death of 8 horses, whose demise has been cleared of any deliberate poisoning by the authorities themselves, should be dismissed without explanation. Not least because this situation is damaging the Association, which has been obliged for over two months to set up a crisis management of the horses, difficult for the staff and the animals, given that we are afraid to let them out into the pastures or to drink the water. This situation is draining all our resources, with heavy consequences for the association. Our work is to report mistreatment, investigate illegal goings-on which exploit horses, to rescue equids who are suffering appalling conditions – work which IHP has been carrying out for over 10 years in all of Italy. We are now seriously limited by not knowing what has killed our horses, and could kill more. We are waiting for concrete answers."

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(photo: Elisa Munafò)