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For the first time in France, a single farm has been found infested with digestive parasites known as cyathostomins, or small strongyles, resistant to all three classes of antiparasitic drugs authorised for equines. They were discovered as part of a study carried out by an ANSES team on a racehorse stud farm.

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a major health problem for both humans and animals. In France, the use of antibiotics and the distribution of resistant bacteria are covered by several surveillance schemes that do not consistently or sufficiently collaborate with one another. The Surv1Health project, which has just been completed, aimed to identify ways of breaking down silos in the surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and making it more useful as part of the ‘One Health’ approach.

Institut Pasteur and ANSES have just signed a partnership agreement to pool their skills in the interests of ‘One Health’. The two organisations carry out complementary activities: one studies human infectious diseases and the other the risks associated with animal diseases and food, including diseases transmitted from animals to humans and by vectors.

The common factor linking bluetongue, epizootic haemorrhagic disease, besnoitiosis, etc. is that they are all caused by pathogens transmitted to ruminants by arthropods such as ticks, midges or mosquitoes. ANSES has funded a review of studies carried out in metropolitan France, which highlighted the many gaps in current knowledge about the vectors found on cattle farms and the pathogens they can transmit. Such knowledge is nevertheless essential given current global changes, which are having an impact on vector distribution and therefore on the epidemiology of vector-borne diseases in livestock.