The Daily Star - Ras al-Nabaa residents urge measures over horse disease - August 12, 2011

BEIRUT: A neighborhood association in Ras al-Nabaa called Thursday for the authorities to take steps to tackle the issue of a horse disease that had been spreading through the country’s horse population last month.
A total of 21 horses were put down in measures designed to control the highly contagious Glanders disease, which spread at the Beirut Hippodrome, next to Ras al-Nabaa.
In a statement released Thursday, the association said the disease was “dangerous, transmissible to humans” and hurt the country’s reputation.”
The Association of Ras al-Nabaa Families also asked why the horses were buried at the hippodrome.
But Nabil Nasrallah, the director of the Society for the Protection and Improvement of the Arabian Horse, which manages the Hippodrome horse-racing venue, said the disease was “eradicated” and that the situation was “perfectly normal,” with horses being regularly tested.
He stressed that “not a single horse” died from the disease and that the horses’ destruction was a preventive measure.