One night in February a few years ago, I received a call from a concerned trainer that her Welsh pony was dull, standing in the back of the stall with a fever of 102 F. She asked in a restless tone, “Can you bring your thermometer because mine might be broken. It’s really old and I haven’t used it recently.”
White and dappled gray horses at a riding stable.
Prevention is in the textbooks we read, and equine vet conferences always have a good panel of speakers on biosecurity, so,we as veterinarians advocate for prevention with our clients.
© 2010 by John Clark
As an official horse show veterinarian, the word “fever” always sends shivers down my spine. I was the only attending veterinarian at this horse show and was just beginning to respond to a variety of emergencies in the wee hours of the night. To say the facility was large would be an understatement. Enormous was more like it. It was fully enclosed, temperature-regulated and housed up to 1,500 horses.
I always hope as a veterinarian that the cause of any horse’s elevated temperature is obvious, like cellulitis or a history of traveling 20 hours on a trailer. When it comes to my personal life, family and friends, I tend to have an optimistic view of the world. When it comes to medicine, I tend to fear the worst.
This 3 a.m. call didn’t turn out to be an ordinary case of “give NSAIDs and antibiotics q12h.” Indeed, the Welsh pony gelding had an elevated 102 F temperature. And so did the trainer’s gray Warmblood mare stalled next to the pony, munching away on her hay as if nothing in her world was abnormal. Typical, isn’t it?
I calmly asked the trainer to continue temping her other horses while I anxiously waited for the serum amyloid A (SAA) reader to render results. I was already planning the worst-case scenario. The results came in…Elevated SAA →→ quarantine →→ nasal swab →→ communicate →→ supportive care →→ wait for PCR results, in that order. Please don’t be herpesvirus!
It was 5 a.m. when I received a phone call from another trainer in another aisle, stating her horse seemed “off.” (TPR: 101.7, 44, 24, SAA – 450). There were now three infected horses in close proximity in two different barns. It wasn’t a coincidence—it was the early signs of a biosecurity event.
And so it began. The innate but also learned skills/experiences that no one can truly prepare you for in school: communication, leadership, poise, setting boundaries, the hours of anxiously waiting for lab results to come in.
The juggling of phone calls between owners, trainers, owners’ home veterinarians, show officials, show management, the governing body of the horse show, state veterinarians and even managers of other shows and their official show veterinarians. Can someone please turn off my phone?
No one prepares you for this. This equine influenza virus (EIV) strain, a highly transmissible but not very virulent pathogen, had a disturbing impact on the horse show and affected numerous training operations. Many horses were ill, but no lives were lost. Horses were quarantined, vaccination records checked, bloodwork run and care rendered until SAA was at 0 or a negative PCR result came in.
Some trainers took their horses home and self-quarantined; others ran SAAs on all their horses and left horses at the show if levels were above 50ug/mL, indicating early signs of infection. Several trainers stayed and continued to show healthy animals. Because EIV is a non-reportable disease, there were no mandated restrictions on horse movement. As you can imagine, there were a lot of opinions on how to handle the situation.
I often reflect and ask myself, what did we do well? What could we have improved? How do we prevent infectious disease outbreaks with so many horses moving from one event to the next? What principles should be in place to minimize future outbreaks moving forward? What did we learn from COVID-19 that can influence preventive measures in the equine community?
Prevention is priority
Given how difficult it is to stop the spread of certain infectious diseases, prevention needs to be our top priority. Prevention is in the textbooks we read, and equine vet conferences always seem to have a good panel of speakers on biosecurity. Of course, as veterinarians, we advocate for prevention with our clients because we care about it and it’s our duty.
We remind clients that their horses are particularly vulnerable at shows, races and events. We emphasize a 2-week quarantine for new horses welcomed at barns and after transport with horses outside their normal population. But how often does this happen? As a barn owner, I know I’m guilty of committing this crime. It’s additional work when so many operations are already short-staffed. How do we do a better job as equine veterinarians of emphasizing and educating on the importance of preventive measures?
Frankly, my firsthand experience of this outbreak absolutely changed the tone with which I discuss preventive measures with clients. I have a lot more urgency in my voice. Conversations around recent outbreaks, such as vesicular stomatitis in California this year, usually get their attention. One gift the pandemic gave us was heightened awareness of contagious diseases. It’s a relatable conversation with horse owners.
Considering the ‘not fun’ factor of an outbreak, one ‘fun fact’ I loved sharing during this particular outbreak was, “Did you know a horse can sneeze and shed a virus reaching half the length of a football field?”1 That’s 50 yards (150 feet) according to the Equine Disease Communication Center (EDCC)Opens in a new window.
Let’s not wait to prioritize biosecurity measures until it’s too late. Let’s focus on prevention first.
Note: This is part I of a 2 part series which will continue on 3/28,2024.
Holly J Helbig, DVM, Equine Technical Services Veterinarian, Zoetis