African Horse Sickness--are we ready?

I live in an area which is a "hotspot" for AHS. My horses always get their shots in early spring (first round plus booster) but I am also very aware that the vaccine is no longer 100% effective. There are varying opinions as to whether horses may be worked after their shots - the older wisdom is to give them 6 weeks rest, after their first shots, and I still do this as a precaution.

Once we have the first spring rains and warmish weather I guard against midges by using a lot of natural insect repellent (eucalyptus, citronella, lavender) but most importantly I bring the horses into their stables well before the midges descend in the later afternoon. As Q of C notes, Tabard also helps.

Like everyone else, I live in dread of the disease and wish that the authorities here would make the effort to do more research and update the vaccine that's available. Unfortunately our government generally regard horses as some sort of luxury for the elite, which is a tragic misconception.
 
Cuffey said:
Quote
''Where an outbreak of African horse sickness is confirmed, the veterinarian must have all infected equidae slaughtered and the carcases of the animals disposed of'
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Gosh that's horrible... So basically if you (Europe and the UK) had to have an outbreak, all the horse's that get sick would just be put down? Here in SA generally the horse's get fought for, if they have the very fatal strain the horse will most likely be dead before a diagnosis can be made (so horse usually isn't put down) but if it has dikkop (which only has a 50% mortality rate) everyone sort of bands together to help it pull through. I've heard of horse's with dikkop receiving free medical procedures (if the owner can't afford it, the vet may be kind enough to carry the cost him/herself) and the whole horsey community sort of grabs in to help. It's actually very unusual that the FEI has seen it has some horribly contagious disease, putting the horse down wont help - the midges usually get the disease from cattle/zebra, so that's the starting point
 
Also this is what is meant by "frothy discharge" in the symptoms I mentioned earlier:

coping2.jpg


So don't fly into a panic if your horse has a runny snozz - normal horsey sick doesn't look like AHS sick
 
QueenOfCadence said:
Gosh that's horrible... So basically if you (Europe and the UK) had to have an outbreak, all the horse's that get sick would just be put down? Here in SA generally the horse's get fought for, if they have the very fatal strain the horse will most likely be dead before a diagnosis can be made (so horse usually isn't put down) but if it has dikkop (which only has a 50% mortality rate) everyone sort of bands together to help it pull through. I've heard of horse's with dikkop receiving free medical procedures (if the owner can't afford it, the vet may be kind enough to carry the cost him/herself) and the whole horsey community sort of grabs in to help. It's actually very unusual that the FEI has seen it has some horribly contagious disease, putting the horse down wont help - the midges usually get the disease from cattle/zebra, so that's the starting point
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At the minute controlling the disease would be by culling...PTS all that are affected in order to stop the disease being able to get a foothold.The same as Foot and mouth was contained :(

Its scheduled and notifiable as a disease so the department of agriculture here or the uk's DEFRA would be in charge of control.
Wether that would be the actual course they would take is hard to know...as I mentioned above it will come down to the national economics and the value of the national herd..and how far the department are willing to go to save exportation and trade....In Ireland horses are a big industry and have a lot of money behind the industry so it would likely be worth trying to save,making so controls more likely.....I ament from the UK so I cant comment on there.

If AHS comes here it would not necessarily be like in SA where its endemic though.There is no immunity in the european horses at all to AHS. It would wipe out thousands if it got hold....

If it was caught early and all those initial horses were PTS it could save thousands of horse in the short term and thousands more in the long term if the disease was stopped.
Bleak but true.
 
Cuffey said:
Please god, we never do see it in UK.

The EU are capable of rolling out a new 'killed' vaccine very quickly should it arrive in the EU

WHY can they not do it for South Africa NOW?
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Not sure what you mean, but we do have vaccines here in SA. The problem is that AHS is like HIV/Aids, it's a virus which means it's constantly changing, as soon as we find a vaccine that creates 100% immunity - it changes and the vaccine is no longer efficient. As for the horses not being put down here, the argument is that if we had to put down the horse's to try and stop the virus, we'd have to cull ALL of our Zebras, run tests on ALL of the cattle and cull the cattle that are carrying the virus as well (of course donkeys and mules would have to undergo the same procedure). It's been around in SA since the anglo-boere war (which is when it's effect on horses was first noted), it hasn't yet spread anywhere else - so I honestly doubt it will. The midges that carry it thrive in a warm, tropical environment - and EU and the UK are the exact opposite of that
 
QueenOfCadence said:
Not sure what you mean, but we do have vaccines here in SA. The problem is that AHS is like HIV/Aids, it's a virus which means it's constantly changing, as soon as we find a vaccine that creates 100% immunity - it changes and the vaccine is no longer efficient.
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The owner of Ditsem has posted that he was vaccinated and well cared for but still got very sick https://www.facebook.com/groups/fightAHS/

Your vaccines are very old and as you say no longer reliable

Notes taken from Warmwell http://www.warmwell.com/ahs.html

No vaccine for AHS is currently licensed in the EU. Use of a modified live vaccine for AHS (such as the one being produced by Onderstepoort Biological Products Ltd in South Africa) carries a risk of vaccine virus reversion to wild type. This means that the virus used in the vaccine could potentially undergo changes whereby it could actually infect vectors, and subsequently susceptible equidae. Currently the vaccine will not be considered for use in the UK other than in an emergency situation

A new type of vaccine is available

A recombinant canarypox virus vectored (ALVAC ®) vaccine for protective immunization of equids against African horse sickness virus (AHSV) infection is discussed in "Protective immunization of horses with a recombinant canarypox virus vectored vaccine co-expressing genes encoding the outer capsid proteins of African horse sickness virus" by Alan Guthrie et al. http://137.215.9.22/bitstream/handle/2263/13909/Guthrie_Protective(2009).pdf?sequence=1

This has been tested in SA but has not been developed--WHY?
 
Cuffey said:
This has been tested in SA but has not been developed--WHY?
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Money mainly. Nobody can afford to have it developed and the government doesn't even maintain our roads/schools/hospitals, there is no way in hell they'd consider sponsoring the development. AHS is unfortunate here in SA, needless to say if precautions are taken your chances are MUCH slimmer, for instance we've NEVER had a case at our yard (which has been going for 20/30 years) - horse's that live out are unfortunately the common victims.

I hope it doesn't pass over to the UK or Europe, it would be unfortunate
 
Interesting video prepared by student Nicky Manning detailing, how the disease is carried by midges, the different symptoms of AHS and the basics of how it would be dealt with in the UK

It also mentions that the EU was to stockpile doses of the live vaccine ''just in case''

That does not seem to have ever happened

We need the modern vaccine to be developed sooner rather than later

African Horse Sickness--What if it reached the UK?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VR1QNhwOe4&feature=share
 
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