OGDEN – Utah agriculture officials say they believe they prevented an outbreak of serious equine disease confirmed in the state earlier this month after the sick horse attended an event in Weber County.
Dr. Dean Taylor, the state veterinarian, said equine herpes virus myeloencephalopathy, or EHM, was confirmed in a horse in Utah on March 7. EHM is an EHV-1 virus disease that can be fatal or cause significant complications and is spread through nasal drops, aerosol drops, or through various shared spaces, including stalls, water, or transportation vehicles.
State officials did not disclose where in the state the sick horse was reported out of respect for the horse’s owner because the horse is kept in a private facility. After further investigation, they found a second horse in the field that also tested positive for EHM.
State officials said they did not know exactly how the originally infected horse became ill. The virus can develop internally through stress or spread from horse to horse.
“We really don’t know where this started at this point,” Taylor said. “Both horses are doing fine. The outbreak is limited to that one facility, and we are well past the two-week period that we would be concerned about there.”
The first positive test sparked concern within the state horse owner community as it attended events at the Golden Spike Events Center in Ogden on February 20 and just before the horse’s owner noticed the horse showing signs of EHM.
Meanwhile, Taylor said there are also rumors floating around that a horse died from the spread of the virus. He said he also received calls on March 10 from concerned horse owners who said their horses showed signs of the virus.
As a precaution, the state had scheduled a barrel race for the Golden Spike Event Center that week. The events center posted on social media on March 11 that it wouldn’t hold any events until a week later as a precaution, which meant more than half a dozen events were canceled.
It allowed the state’s Ministry of Agriculture to investigate the situation further. The department identified six facilities with potentially sick horses.
In a public letter about the situation Monday, Taylor wrote that the only premise that came back positive was the “originally positive premise.” No other horses were confirmed to be sick with the virus, including the horses exposed on February 20.
See the letter below with an update on EHV-1 at our facility.
Posted by Golden Spike Event Center on Monday, March 22, 2021
“Currently, this outbreak appears to be under control,” the letter said. “No more cases have surfaced at any event at the Golden Spike Event Center and we are now past the period when we would expect to see cases.”
The letter also states that the agency did not believe it “was necessary to limit events involving horses in the future.”
He also told KSL.com on Tuesday that there was a deceased horse, but the state was unable to have any laboratory work done on the horse to confirm the virus, nor were there any compounds linking that horse and the originally infected horse. would pair.
Taylor said the facility has “done an excellent job” of quarantining their horses since the initial diagnosis with the two infected horses. The facility is also nearing completion with a 21-day precautionary quarantine.
In addition, he praised Weber County’s policy of disinfecting the event center after each event, as it likely took into account why the disease was only found in one location.
“Once that horse arrived (Feb. 20), that entire facility was disinfected for the next event,” he said. “So in hindsight that was probably very beneficial in controlling this disease.”
As for EHM itself, it is treated with supportive care, such as the provision of fluids and anti-inflammatory drugs. The state shared a brochure on how horse owners can deal with EHV-1 and EHM after the latest possible outbreak in 2019.