The office of the State Agriculture Commissioner said Monday Kentucky stallions are free of contagious equine metritis (CEM) that can cause infertility and spontaneous abortions in mares if they are able to conceive.
State Veterinarian Robert C. Stout said in a statement from the agriculture commissioner's office that four stallions that tested positive late last year have been released from quarantine on their unnamed central Kentucky farm as has a western Kentucky quarter horse.
"Kentucky has addressed this outbreak with minimal disruption to the quarter horse breeding season," Stout said in the release. "The success of this operation is the result of more than three months of hard work."
The affected stallions arrived in Kentucky for the 2008 breeding season and had never resided in the commonwealth before. A release earlier in the month stated the infections stemmed from a Wisconsin horse that came into Kentucky for the last breeding season.
According to the release nationwide look showed a total of 16 infected and around 700 exposed horses.
CEM was first seen in Europe in 1977 according to the USDA and was first discovered stateside the following year on farms in the Bluegrass. It is caused by a bacteria that and can be cured from both stallions and mares, but stallions fail to show symptoms of the disease and mares lose at least one breeding season according the USDA.