Equine Flu Update Monday 11 February 2019 6.45 a.m.

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PeterNatt

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There is no connection to McCain's yard. Chrisford was ordered to be tested because Becca Menzies had horses at Newcastle and she had a few of her own voluntarily tested because they were ill. Her results have come back negative to flu so the horses did not pick it up from Newcastle.

And there was me thinking we were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!
 
ilovemorgan said:
so how do we think the one's in Newmarket caught it?
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70% of UK horses are not vaccinated - so anywhere ? Staff, equipment, snot - went to thing the other day (no wonder the vet was twitchy) and her main point was we should all know our horses normal temperature - she was emphatic about it . . .
 
ilovemorgan said:
so how do we think the one's in Newmarket caught it?
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Where do you think the ones in suffolk are? For whats its worth we wont know the true extent of any infection from the race meetings for a few days yet as the incubation period is not up until today. The very reason the BHA stopped all racing until wednesday this week.
 
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jofwigby said:
70% of UK horses are not vaccinated - so anywhere ? Staff, equipment, snot - went to thing the other day (no wonder the vet was twitchy) and her main point was we should all know our horses normal temperature - she was emphatic about it . . .
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The 'air' you need to add it can travel quite some distance in the winds we have had recently. Animals and birds are also able to carry it,this is why its so infectious you dont need contact.
 
Also worth mentioning that if you look at the table on the AHT website it doesn't represent in full the actual number of individual horses affected. If you read the pages that follow on from the table you can add up that there are 30+ individual horses now known to be affected.
 
We've had 4 in Lincolnshire and I heard last night that one had been pts - but that's not been confirmed. All of ours that are 6months+ since last vax are being done with a booster this week.

I did see on the BBC this morning that only 30% of horses in the UK are vaccinated against EI.
 
It would seem that giving a booster vacc is esentially pointless as the new ones from Newmarket last night had all had a vacc within the last 6 months.

The BHA will let us know at 10.30pm tonight if we are racing this weekend or not. They are waiting for as many test results to come in as possible and are speaking to as many vets etc as they can again before making a decision.
 
EKW said:
It would seem that giving a booster vacc is esentially pointless as the new ones from Newmarket last night had all had a vacc within the last 6 months.

The BHA will let us know at 10.30pm tonight if we are racing this weekend or not. They are waiting for as many test results to come in as possible and are speaking to as many vets etc as they can again before making a decision.
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Per the other thread running on this, I don't think giving a six month booster is pointless.

It increases the antibodies against the FC1 strain of flu, which the current outbreak is same strain, though somewhat mutated.

Current thinking is vaccinated horses recover far faster, and the optimum level of antibodies to fight current outbreak, is a booster every six months.

There is some protection all year, but a decreasing level as antibodies decrease over the year. Six month boosters keep numbers higher.
 
Maybe part of the middlesex/herts argument ;).

I'm going on holiday :p.

Realistically there is a reason all the rules say not to have vaccine within 7 days of competition, someone must have done that research but I'm not feeling like a data hunt right now ;). I suspect it depends a bit on animal. (people they always say 2 weeks). Antibodies aren't really my thing, the other half of the company do them :p
 
Does anyone actually know how many flu cases we get per year, to compare with the 30 so far?

I can only assume its barely none, if only 30% of horses are vaccinated against flu, or is that against that particular strain?
All competiton horses would be/ racing, so is it the leisure industry that isn't?
 
EKW said:
The BHA will let us know at 10.30pm tonight if we are racing this weekend or not. They are waiting for as many test results to come in as possible and are speaking to as many vets etc as they can again before making a decision.
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Well you can go and race in Ireland....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/47203012

Seems mad to allow horses to travel overseas to race but not to race at home! but we will see what they decide tonight.

Another question for Ester..... in any random sample of any 2000 non symptomatic horses - how many would test positive for flu anyway due to exposure that leads to antibodies but not clinically significant illness? Isn't that just the vaccines doing their job?
 
Ambers Echo said:
Another question for Ester..... in any random sample of any 2000 non symptomatic horses - how many would test positive for flu anyway due to exposure that leads to antibodies but not clinically significant illness? Isn't that just the vaccines doing their job?
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Sorry, I'm not Ester, but I do have a Veterinary Pathogenesis degree....
The PCR detects viral DNA in the nasal discharge. You don't get false positives, if there's viral DNA present, the horse has an active infection of influenza
 
Thanks that is interesting.

So next question - my (admittedly limited) understanding of vaccines is that they look like the illness so your body has a strong antibody response to exposure because it recognises it as foreign/unwanted. But does that mean zero viral load? Or just highly reduced viral load. Because you still have to have enough exposure to trigger an antibody response don't you? In which case my original question is still in any random sample of any 2000 non symptomatic horses - how many would test positive for flu while not showing any clinical symptoms. Do they do mass screenings of horses when there is no outbreak around just as a control?
 
vaccine introduces the extracellular proteins to your immune system. It doesn't even have to be the 'actual' virus you can express just the outside bits on a virus-like particule. Ideally this will = zero viral load due to quick elminiation of any entering virus particles. This is where the element of cross protection comes in though ergo the immune system might sort of recognise it but not enough for elmination to prevent infection. Does that make sense?

We do have data for every year, the summaries indicate how many samples were tested and how many were positive, they don;'t seem to have published quarter 4, but the first three Q iirc about 600 samples tested (presumably symptomatic) one horse positive. We don't randomly test asymptomatic horses as I don't think anyone would think they would be positive.

They take nasopharangeal swabs for PCR, and blood for antibodies- I don't know what they do with the latter result other than perhaps provide a titer for the amount of infection? not my side that :p.
 
ester said:
Maybe part of the middlesex/herts argument ;).

I'm going on holiday :p.

Realistically there is a reason all the rules say not to have vaccine within 7 days of competition, someone must have done that research but I'm not feeling like a data hunt right now ;). I suspect it depends a bit on animal. (people they always say 2 weeks). Antibodies aren't really my thing, the other half of the company do them :p
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2 weeks for humans? Wow! After my flu jab phase 1 training I was made to run around carrying weight the next day. And after having Typhoid, Hep B and Yellow Fever all in one day I was made to go on a 5K run! That sucked, felt awful!
 
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