Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

msar-riders - [MSAR] West Nile Virus

msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Mounted search and rescue

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Una Smith <una@lanl.gov>
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [MSAR] West Nile Virus
  • Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 14:32:27 -0600

This is copied from SAR-L, another mailing list, but may be of
interest also to MSAR-Riders.

Ed Kostiuk wrote:
>>The alarming point I have been trying to make all year to SAR
>>teams was the equestrian units.....27 states with a death rate
>>of almost 50% of those effected animals............

Una Smith replied:
>50%?! Ed, what is your source?
>
>The mortality rates I have seen are far lower, and in any case
>they include euthanasia for non-medical reasons such as panic,
>misinformation, concern about the potential cost of treatment
>(monitoring, fluids by IV or stomach tube, possibly suspension
>in a body sling), or inconvenience. There is no public health
>benefit to killing horses sick with WNV, because horses do not
>re-transmit the virus to mosquitos, but not everyone knows that.
>Another reason the mortality rates are high, compared to human
>mortality rates, is that horses rarely have medical insurance.
>Because tests cost the horse owner out-of-pocket, horses rarely
>are tested for WNV unless they are severely ill with symptoms
>of WNV.
>
>Comparing WNV "hotspots" for 2003 with the prior 3 years, it
>appears that within a few years WNV will have finished sweeping
>through North America, causing very few deaths and leaving
>behind it a population that is largely immune:
>
> http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/equine/wnv/map2003.html
> http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/equine/wnv/maps.html
>
>By then, WNV will have killed off its reservoir: susceptible
>birds. In the meantime, I do agree that DEET is a good idea in
>mosquito-prone areas, but I have thought so since before WNV.
>
>Some more URLS for information about WNV:
>
> http://westnilemaps.usgs.gov/
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ (search PubMed for papers)
>
>It is important to remember that WNV causes *no* illness in
>>99% of all infected horses; once infected, the horse should
>be immune for the rest of its life. There is a killed-virus
>vaccine for horses, but as a horse owner and a scientist who
>knows more about viral epidemiology than most scientists do (I
>study HIV), I question whether it is worth the medical risk,
>effort, and expense of 2 or more injections to start and 1 or
>more booster injections per year thereafter. My horse already
>gets 8 or more doses per year of IV and IM injections and/or
>very nasty fluids squirted in her mouth and up her nose. She
>is a jewel of a horse who takes this calmly. However, many
>horses hate injections, hate oral and nasal medicines, hate
>vets, and cannot be vaccinated safely without using physical
>restraints and/or tranquilizers. If you have ever struggled
>with a cat or dog, consider how dangerous it can be to handle
>a 1000+ pound horse that is freaking.
>
>Stay safe (and in the saddle),
>
> Una Smith
>
>Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS K-710, Los Alamos, NM 87545




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page