It was a blustery Thursday afternoon in suburban Brisbane; the last chills of winter were disappearing and the jacaranda trees looked just about ready

The deadly disease outbreak in sleepy suburbia

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2021-07-05 21:30:08

It was a blustery Thursday afternoon in suburban Brisbane; the last chills of winter were disappearing and the jacaranda trees looked just about ready to blossom.

Horses were being cut up in the front yard of a local stable by vets from the Department of Primary Industries, and the street was literally running with blood.

"There were a lot of body parts and blood and tissue leaking into the ground, so much so that some of the blood was running through the driveway, into the gutter," says local vet Peter Reid, who had been treating the horses before they died.

The DPI vets were trying to get to the bottom of what had suddenly killed several horses at the suburban stable. But there was little in the way of infection control.

"Some of the owners of the horses — without any personal protection — were bagging up the heads of the horses and brains and body parts … and dumping them into the back of an open semi-trailer," Dr Reid says.

"Then there was a crane operating, which was winching the horses — which had been opened with all the tissue and blood dripping out — across the footpath and street. It was horrendous."

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