Glanders status report in India: Beginning of eradicating the dreaded ancient disease

Glanders is a highly fatal infectious disease of equines and is caused by Burkholderia mallei. Glanders was highly prevalent in India during last centuries, and led to the adoption of ‘Glanders and Farcy Act 1899’. Available information suggests that resurgence of glanders cases took place during 1960-70s, however, its prevalence decreased thereafter. In 1990 and 1998, outbreaks of glanders were reported from Punjab and Haryana. However, there emergence of glanders took place in 2006, and thereafter, due to unrestricted equine movement, continuous occurrence of glanders has led to gradual spread of disease to new territories. Furthermore, the unavailability of suitable diagnostics for mass surveillance, inadequate control policy, zoonotic potential of glanders and the notifiable nature of the disease creates an alarming situation to veterinary authority. The present manuscript describes developments in the area of glanders surveillance conducted between 2006 and 2018. During 2006-18, a total of 1,28,404 sera samples were tested for glanders and 1145 equines across 14 states were found positive. Uttar Pradesh was the worst-hit state out of 14 states, recording 653 glanders positive cases from 58 districts. Continuous occurrences of glanders were also observed in North Indian states of Jammu & Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh. Now, it is feasible to set a reasonable timeline (~15 years) to achieve glanders free status of the country, given the present number of equine population in India, availability of diagnostics, control policy, and adequate capacity of state laboratories.