A review on glanders: re-emerging threat

This article is a review of Glanders which is a zoo‌notic disease of solipeds caused by a gram negative bacte‌rium named Burkholderia mallei. We used key words glanders, zoonotic disease and bioterrorism for search in PubMed and Google. Finally 53 eligible articles (written in English or Persian) were selected for review. Glanders is highly contagious and often fatal. It has been eradicated from many countries by implementing effective control programs which detect and quarantine infected animals and suspected contacts. Glanders is an illness with myriad clinical manifestation that mimic symptom of other diseases. New evidence suggests emergence of disease in our country. Numbers of infected horses in our country have increased recently, and infection in lions of the Tehran Zoo has been reported. Burkholderia mallei has the potential to be used as a biological weapon, so a review of clinical presentations, diagnosis and treatment of glanders and a heightened index of suspicion in veterinary physicians is needed.