Protest over dying horses

Horse riders and stable owners in the kingdom have voiced their fury over the outbreak of the contagious bacterial disease glanders which has spread chaos, fear and heartbreak across the kingdom.

They have staged a public protest, launched a social networking site and are demanding more information and a faster response from the authorities before the fatal illness spreads and more horses die.

Members of the 'Stop Glanders in Bahrain' campaign group are launching a petition to stop the movement of horses, illegal racing and demand official quarantine areas for sick animals.

German horse lover Britta Tappendorf, 39, who has been riding and caring for horses in Germany and Bahrain since she was six-years-old, said that she had never seen a situation like this before.

She believes that the problem is largely because the island has been unprepared to deal with the outbreak and hopes the government would take more stringent measures to tackle the crisis and ensure that they are implemented.

Britta used to own six horses stabled at the Sahara Riding Centre in Saar. One of them tested positive during the first round of testing. Although the horse, called Shihab, a seven-year old thoroughbred, did not show any symptoms Britta had the animal put to sleep.

She said: 'I don't want to spread fear but there are many who are continuing to ride horses openly.

'We recently met an owner whose horse became sick four weeks ago. It began sneezing, coughing and a yellow paste started coming out of its nose. Finally, when the horse started bleeding the owner put it down and buried it in Saar. The problem may not end there - wild dogs could smell and dig up the rotting meat and the infection could spread.

'Our ultimate aim is to work together with the authorities and get the situation under control.'

Hundreds of protesters lined a desert path close to the Shaikh Khalifa Highway near Saar with banners and posters of the horse-loving Royal Family of Bahrain pleading for His Majesty King Hamad's support.

Glanders is highly contagious and potentially fatal and is believed to have spread to the island as a result of an untested animal being brought into the country with strict quarantine restrictions being ignored.

Confusion reigns on the actual number of horses that have been put down as a result of the tests. The Facebook campaigners claim 47 horses have been infected.

Municipalities and Agriculture Ministry livestock director Dr Salman Abdul Nabi told our sister newspaper the Gulf Daily News that 10 horses had been put down so far. The Facebook group claims the numbers have risen to 13 and GulfWeekly investigations suggested it may have risen to 19 in recent days.

Glanders can spread by horses sharing a brush, a mouth bit or a water bucket, through urine and waste and simple interaction.

Currently blood samples cannot be checked in Bahrain and have to be sent to Dubai to the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory (CVRL). There is growing dissatisfaction that the reports of these tests are not transparent enough as the owners are not being provided with the official laboratory result sheet.

Mohammed Radhi, another owner who has lost a horse in the outbreak, said: 'It is believed that horses have been affected by glanders for the last one-and-a-half years. Nothing is clear. Our stable in Saar had 20 horses. We only have six left.

'There is a need for more transparency from the authorities and we want the complete report about our horses from Dubai. We also want more specialists and medical equipment to test this sort of outbreak here in Bahrain.

'The authorities also need to educate us about what we have to be careful about and provide proper information.'

Anki Holmstrom, owner of the Twin Palms Riding Centre located behind St Christopher's School in Saar believes one of the biggest headaches is a lack of information.

Her stables have 60 horses and three were put down as a result of having received positive testing results. She said: 'We are losing customers who are not confident of the situation. The results of the blood tests are taking too long to return and I am not confident of the results because of the way they are set out.

'Horses that look healthy and show no signs of illness appear to have been tested positive and we have had to put them down. There also needs a much stricter law about testing horses before moving them and they should be applicable equally to everybody.'

Bahrain Royal Equestrian and Endurance Federation (BREEF) president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa has announced that stables affected by the bacterial glanders disease will be compensated for their losses. The compensation will, however, be pending results of a comprehensive study to assess losses.

Shaikh Khalid also revealed that BREEF would co-operate with the Ministry of Municipalities and Agriculture's survey of all stables affected by the disease. BD15,000 has been allocated by the Cabinet to combat the disease.

Bahrain is said to have between 6,500 to 7,000 horses.

On average riding ponies and horses in Bahrain can cost anywhere between BD800 to BD1,500 and a racing thoroughbred around BD15,000 and above.