Equine Herpesvirus outbreak impacting some WA horse owners
Equine herpesvirus spreads to WA
Some local horse owners are keeping an extra close watch on their hooved companions, after a national outbreak of equine herpesvirus.
SEATTLE - Some local horse owners are keeping an extra close watch on their hooved companions, after a national outbreak of equine herpesvirus. It all happened after a show in Texas.
FOX 13 visited Seattle Farms, where the owner said none of their horses are infected by the virus, but they’re taking precautions just in case.
"We don’t let them eat out of a dish of a horse we don’t know we don’t let them drink after a horse we don’t know, we don’t let them sniff noses with a horse they don’t know," Gloria Sferra said.
She’s the self-proclaimed grandma of the farm. "Some of these horses are very, very old and have lived here all their lives," Sferra said.
Horses in Washington state
She told FOX 13, the farm has been in their family for more than a hundred years. Right now, she’s not too concerned about her horses getting the equine herpesvirus because she says her horses have all been vaccinated.
"They don’t really associate with strange horses too much," Sferra said.
About 1,200 horses were exposed to the virus during an event in Texas last month, according to Amber Itle, the State Veterinarian for the Washington State Department of Agriculture. The concern is that as the horses move, they can move with the virus.
"Since the beginning of the very first detection we had a few weeks ago, I believe there's been 33 cases now in eight states," Itle said.
In Washington, she explained that we’ve seen a few trace backs. "What that means is horses that were exposed to a horse that became infected," Itle said.
She went on to explain that there are a few different forms of Equine Herpesvirus. There’s a neurologic form, and then there's a there's a respiratory form.
"Here in Washington state, we've really only had two cases of the respiratory form, and horses recover from that," Itle said. "It's very common... It’s just that occasionally that virus mutates in a way that makes it neurologic, and it attacks the blood vessels in the brain and causes those horses to have neurologic signs, and can be fatal like up to about 40% of the time, and so in Washington state, we've been really fortunate that we haven't had cases related to this particular outbreak. However, we do get cases of EHM (Equine Herpesvirus
Myeloencephalopathy in our state almost every year, so it's something we're familiar with and that we're used to working with."
Local perspective:
The outbreak prompted shows across the country to be canceled or postponed, including two in Washington.
"It was just too high risk," Crystal Hornbuckle Baker is the owner and trainer for Cedar Hill Training Center in Yelm said. She was supposed to take her horses to the shows, but instead, they’re now on lockdown.
"We're just not taking any chances," she said. She adds, none of her horses have been exposed, but out of caution she’s not allowing any outside horses into her facility. "It makes it so a lot of people can't get help with their horses during this time, and none of my horses can go anywhere and then come back to the barn," Hornbuckle Baker said.
Itle told FOX 13, one of the most important things horse owners can do is make sure their horses are up to date on their vaccines. She also recommends taking its temperature twice a day and being conscious of everything that touches your horse.
"It's a respiratory disease, right? So anything that can touch respiratory secretions, that could be a human, that could be a dog, that could be a bucket, that could be a shared water source, that could be a wash rack, that could be a place where we're tying horses up, those places all have risk associated with carrying that virus and allowing it to transmit horse to horse," Itle said.
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