The Kentucky Office of State Veterinarian has reported a diagnosis of Equine Herpesvirus Type 1 in Barn 3 at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington, Kentucky, according to a posting early Thursday morning on the Equine Disease Communication Center's website and confirmed by Dr. Robert Stout, Kentucky State Veterinarian and Executive Director of the OSV (Office of the State Veterinarian). The case was reported Tuesday after a horse that had presented with fever of unknown origin was sampled and testing results identified the horse to be positive for EHV-1 'wild type' on both nasal wash and whole blood.
The statement, posted by the Kentucky Office of State Veterinarian, reads, “The barn was immediately secured with no horses being allowed to move into or out of the barn and biosecurity protocols were put in place. The affected barn's population is currently comprised of 18 horses including the index case. Two horses that moved out of the barn prior to the discovery are currently in isolation on a private farm and a barn at The Thoroughbred Center has been emptied and dedicated to serve as the quarantine barn used to isolate the positive horses. Samples collected from the exposed horses earlier today have been partially reported, and has identified six additional positive cases.”
Contacted by the TDN Thursday, Stout said there is no reason to believe that potentially infected horses have left the barn at The Thoroughbred Center and gone elsewhere.
“We don't have any evidence of that,” Stout said. “In the barn that's quarantined, there were 20 horses. Two of them went back to private facilities. They got saddled in that barn, and that was about it, and then they went back to the farm they came from. They've been tested too and they're isolated on that farm, so they're no risk. Other than that, we don't have any indication that there has been any other movement off the training center of those horses.”
Jim Pendergast of The Thoroughbred Center, which is owned by Keeneland, said he is confident that every measure is being taken to promote a thorough and expedited return to normalcy at the facility. Aside from the quarantined barn, operations such as training at the center are being conducted as usual.
“We're working with the state vets office,” Pendergast said.
“We're following all their advice and biosecurity protocols and we've got all of those in place in the barn we have isolated. We feel pretty comfortable that we're going to be able to contain this and get things back to normal as quickly as possible.”
The site also posted an update on the Turfway Park EHV-1 cases first reported Feb. 3. The statement from the Kentucky Office of State Veterinarian read, “According to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture there have been no fevers or any other evidence of illness reported in the quarantine barn at Turfway Park Racetrack. Observations during monitoring found horses to be bright, alert, eating and with no evidence of illness.”
Stout said Mr. Rusty Ford was on-site at Turfway Thursday and he is hopeful that the quarantine would be released next week.
With a number of cases being reported across the country in recent weeks–including one at Portland Meadows in Oregon and another at Turf Paradise in Arizona–Stout said he believes the increase in documented cases is at least partially a product of more focused reporting.
“The EDCC (Equine Disease Communication Center), I think they're doing a wonderful job, and I can't say enough about them,” Stout said. “There is an increased awareness because of that. I think there's an increased awareness in the general horse people population of the risk of herpes, and the awareness among vets and horsemen have led to more testing. With more testing, you'll find more herpes, and there is more reporting.”
Stout added that a number of factors must be considered when attempting to contain the spread of the disease.
“The virus, as far as I know, hasn't changed,” Stout said. “Weather conditions certainly play a part, and to correlate increases with weather would be an interesting study. It seems like the viruses like cold weather. It hangs around a little longer, and horses are a little more enclosed. There's no doubt about it. You close up a barn because we think horses need creature comforts like we do, but that's an avenue for infection.”
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