AFRICAN HORSE SICKNESS

[lj81]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have been worried by the information in the equestrian press regarding AHS. However, although I understand that the disease has the potential to be devasting, I've been looking on the net and worry that there is a certain amount of scare mongering going on. In Africa a vaccine is ALREADY available. And the reports of a 90% mortality rate don't seem to tie in with the figures for the last 3 years. The cases for each year have been LESS than 500. And as for limiting movement, the disease is spread by midges, NOT HORSE TO HORSE.
It seems like a good excuse to wrangle more money out of horse owners pockets. The vaccine ALREADY exists. Get it licenced to the UK. Let us get our horses vaccinated. Job done!
http://www.africanhorsesickness.co.za/Documents/doc_19.pdf

 

[Rudey]

Better to have prevention then cure.... but saying that, it does help if we have a cure in our country!!! xx

 

[pookie]

While I think it's very important horse owners/riders understand as much as possible about AHS, I'm not entirely sure the label of 'scaremongering' is entirely appropriate.

First, a variety of strains have been identified, each of which appears to have a different mortality rate. One of these variants, AHS/4SP, results in a mortality rate of 100%, predominantly due to its tendency to always cause severe pulmonary oedema. In comparison, AHS/9PI results in a mortality rate of approximately 70%. Admittedly, these figures are from studies conducted in the early to mid 90s, so may not accurately reflect current epidemiology data. There's a big difference between the number of horses infected by a particular strain each year, and the number of those infected horses that die.

It's also important to understand the concerns surrounding the live vaccine produced in South Africa. In addition to being a preventative rather than a cure/treatment, there have been reports of vaccine failure and vaccine-induced disease - certainly still a concern as of summer 2009. Further studies need to be conducted into the reliability of this vaccine, or any other produced, and they are marketed globally.

Finally, vector transmission (via midges, rather than being a contagion) is only slightly better than horse-to-horse transmission. It's still a highly infectious disease and in areas where there are midges (I believe there's also some concern over mosquitoes) it is and will continue to be a significant threat to horse populations.

DEFRA is rightly being cautious about the currently available vaccine. Until the vaccine is considered to be safe within acceptable parameters, it shouldn't just be licensed and readily available. More research needs to be conducted.

 

[NeilM]

I have received mail from a charity asking for money to help finance a vaccine to combat AHS, and the tactics used are DEFINITELY scare mongering.

 

[sare_bear]

Having lived in Africa, AHS is not a nice disease! As it is not transmitted from horse to horse but rather via the cullicoides midge it makes the disease harder to control.

All our horses were vaccinated with a min of 21 days between vaccines. These are not boosters of each other but are vaccinating against different strains. The horses are not allowed to work much during this period (6 weeks), so the competition calendar was adjusted for this. There were still horses that had been vaccinated and got diseased. However these horses seemed to be less severe. I.e Lower mortality rate. However, a few still never recovered enough to go back to top level competition.

How many of these that got AHS once vaccinated, was due to the vaccine infecting them itself or from vaccine failure, I'm not sure.

I do think that although a vaccine in SA is already in production it is still under going continuous research to make it safer and to include new strains as and when needed. I do think that this should only be used as a backup and that it does no harm to do ones own research here to get a similar vaccine licenced. (Who knows this may prove to be safer??)

I have not recieved any mail on this subject so cannot comment on the scare mongering tactics used. However I think we do need to be prepared for the future and investing time and money now, does seem sensible rather than leaving it until an outbreak has occurred.