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Equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) is a disease of horses that affects the central nervous system. Equine obviously refers to the horse, protozoal refers to the type of organism that causes the disease and myeloencephalitis refers to that portion of the animal, which is damaged. More than 50 percent of all horses in the United States may have been exposed to the organism that causes EPM. The causative organism is a protozoal parasite called Sarcocystis neurona. The disease is not transmitted from horse to horse. Rather, the protozoa are spread by the definitive host, the opossum, which acquires the organism from cats, raccoons, skunks and armadillos and possibly even from harbor seals and sea otters. The infective stage of the organism (the sporocysts) is passed in the opossum’s feces. The horse comes into contact with the infective sporocysts while grazing or eating contaminated feed or drinking water.
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