In spite of changing autumn weather, horse owners across New York and throughout the country are being urged to vaccinate their animals against both Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile virus.
Stopping the cycle of mosquito-borne diseases
In spite of changing autumn weather, horse owners across New York and throughout the country are being urged to vaccinate their animals against mosquito-borne diseases.
The warning from state Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball is important since parts of New York and many other areas in the USA have mosquito activity into late November and the insects transmit both diseases from birds to horses.
New York has had six cases this year of EEE upstate in Madison, Wayne, Oneida and Oswego counties, though no cases of West Nile virus have been reported. A horse in central New York has been euthanized after suffering with neurological symptoms associated with Eastern Equine Encephalitis.
Humans cannot become infected by handling or being exposed to an infected horse, and horses cannot spread either virus to or from other horses, people or pets.
Vaccines are available to reduce the incidence of the viruses in horses and can be effective for six to 12 months.
The New York state health department recommends that horses be vaccinated for the disease. In humans, it can produce symptoms ranging from mild flu-like illness to inflammation of the brain, coma and death in about a third of those affected.
In Wisconsin, a Dane County boarding and training facility for horses has been quarantined after an outbreak of the highly contagious equine herpes virus.
One horse had to be euthanized just before Labor Day and two more at the same site have tested positive and are ill. An outbreak earlier this year killed several horses in Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin.
The state veterinarian, Paul McGraw, says equine herpesvirus-1, or EHV-1, causes respiratory disease, abortion and intermittent outbreaks of neurologic disease in horses.
All three horses in Dane County were vaccinated in spring for rhinopneumonitis, which is the non-neurological form of the virus. But there are no vaccines for the neurologic form.