Intervacc : Agneta Gustafsson joins Intervacc

We have the great pleasure of welcoming Agneta Gustafsson to Intervacc and our initiative - Together against strangles. Agneta, who is a well-established name in the veterinary medicine industry, has renowned specialist competence in equine medicine and she is a sought-after addition in our work against strangles.

Below Agneta tells more about herself and the opportunity she did not want to miss - to work with a new vaccine for horses that targets a devastating disease, strangles.

Warm welcome Agneta, we really look forward to moving forward together - against strangles.

DVM 1985
Swedish specialist competence in equine diseases 1997
PhD 2004
Dipl ECEIM (European Colleague of Equine Internal Medicine) 2005.

I started my veterinary career with different jobs, but soon focusing on Equine medicine with my first temporary positions at Skara Djursjukhus and Hallands Djursjukhus. Between 1991-2005 I was employed at the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, doing mainly clinical practice and lecturing veterinary students during. The teaching involved both plenary sessions on the subject equine medicine as well as clinical instruction of veterinary students. For a period, I was also the manager of the Equine clinic.

During this time, I also became part of a research project that resulted in my doctoral thesis: Antibiotic Associated Diarrhea in horses, with a special reference to Clostridium difficile.

2006-2023 I held a position as Nordic Technical Manager at Intervet/Intervet- Schering-Plough/MSD Animal Health, with medical responsibility for the company's veterinary medicines marketed in the Nordics; efficacy and safety in the field, assessing possible side effects, interactions and other medical issues. Furthermore, daily consultations for veterinarians in the field, internal and external information and most of all education and lecturing. I'm an experienced speaker and as well as moderator. I have over the years developed a deeper knowledge in immunology and vaccinology, which has been my responsibility and main interest.

My interest for Intervaccs strangles vaccine has several grounds; it's a new vaccine on the market with new technology, it's a vaccine for horses and it's directed against a devastating disease, a disease I have had extensive clinical experience from during my time at the University. Being a referral equine medicine clinic, the University took care of a very wide range of clinical cases of strangles. There were of course typical cases but very ill and in need for hospitalization, but also commonly undiagnosed cases with only vague fever. Silent carriers were sometimes found just by chance during endoscopy, then the very hard work started to try and get the condroids out of the guttural pouches. Other examples are bastard strangles with football sized bumps on foals in the gluteal region possible to open and drain, or in the abdomen not possible to treat, and cases with incurable pharynx paralysis as well as severe cases of purpura hemorrhagica. The moment you put in the endoscope you almost knew it was strangles, at least you dared to bet on many cases… All very fascinating for a clinician, yet horrible. I have given two international speeches on strangles, one being a shorter presentation on strangles and the reportability in Sweden at a BEVA pre-meeting 2008.

Furthermore, despite being a reportable disease in Sweden and an increasing knowledge on biosecurity over the last years, it's noticed that diagnosed strangles cases seem to increase in prevalence. It's known that the way to make a change is to combine biosecurity with vaccinating to achieve herd immunity to lower the infection pressure. We simply need to start vaccinating to make the disease decrease.