Posted on August 15, 2009 by Scott Weese

Mandatory Horse Show Vaccination Complaints

Last year, there was a large equine influenza outbreak at the Crawford County Fair in Pennsylvania. In response to that, a mandatory influenza vaccination policy was implemented. However, registrations for this year’s fair have dropped by 1/3 from 457 to 310. One horse owner says “It’s because of the shots.”

This is a pretty unfortunate response by horse owners. Mandatory vaccination is an entirely reasonable component of an infection control program that should be more widespread. Shows are optimal environments for transmission of disease. Huge numbers of horses get sick ever year from infections acquired at shows and outbreaks are not exactly rare.

One horse owner explains her decision not to show as “It’s the expense, plus there’s the risk of an adverse reaction to the shots.” That’s code for “It’s the expense.”

Vaccines are pretty cheap, especially when you consider how much money is spent on the horse and showing each year. People often spend huge amounts on boarding, (largely unnecessary) supplements, tack and other supplies, along with the costs of registering and traveling to shows. Concerns about adverse reactions are often used to justify non-vaccination, but it’s usually just an excuse. Adverse reactions to vaccines are quite rare and typically minor. Adverse reactions to intranasal influenza vaccination are extremely rare to non-existent.

Hopefully this fair sticks with this policy. They should be commended for taking a responsible action and more fairs should be doing the same thing. Personally, this is a fair that I’d want to show at. The vaccination requirement means there’s less chance of a horse acquiring influenza. Also, weeding out people who are too cheap or otherwise unwilling to use good preventive medicine strategies should decrease the pool of horses that are carrying other infectious diseases. Those people can organized their own vaccine-free show (the biohazard games).

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Posted on June 30, 2009 by Scott Weese

Parking Lot Quarantine For World Equestrian Games

International events like the World Equestrian Games are important and high profile competitions. They are also great places for disease transmission, with large numbers of horses from different areas brought together, along with associated stressors that can increase the risk of disease.

For the 2010 games at the Kentucky Horse Park, a long term parking lot at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport has been designated as a quarantine facility. Up to 600 horses will be temporarily stabled there after arriving from other countries. They will be required to stay in quarantine for at least 42 hours, to be monitored for signs of infectious diseases and for completion of selected laboratory tests. While it may seem strange at first, this site was chosen because it's readily accessible, close to the event, and can provide the needed security. Horses from some regions are subject to different quarantines at different facilities. For example, horses from Asia will be quarantined in Los Angeles, while South American horses are quarantined in Miami and tested for additional diseases such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis and screwworm.

Quarantine is a highly effective measure, if done properly, but it is not foolproof. You can never completely eliminate infectious disease risks because some diseases can have longer incubation periods than the quarantine, and others can be carried by healthy animals. Testing for specific pathogens can help pick up these hidden carriers, but you can't test for everything. You can never declare a horse to be free of all potential causes of disease, because such a horse doesn't exist. All horses carry something that could cause disease in certain situations, but in general these are low risk. The key is focusing efforts on the most common and most serious diseases.

Because quarantine and testing are not 100%, good general infection control practices are also required. The presence of a quarantine must not create a false sense of security and thereby be used as an excuse to relax basic infection control practices. These include things like restricting direct and indirect contact (e.g. sharing buckets) between horses, good hand hygiene by people working with the horses, and close monitoring for signs of disease, among other things. The intense preparations that are involved here show the importance of infectious disease in the equine industry and an excellent awareness of the problem.

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