Bill Saville, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, is a veterinary epidemiologist in the Veterinary Preventive Medicine Department at The Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. In the past decade, Saville has become widely recognized for his studies of equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM), a neurologic disease that has affected thousands of horses in the United States.
 
But lately, his name has become synonymous with another disease: West Nile virus (WNV). Since 1999, Saville has been part of a team of health educators,  administrators, and state officials who have been organizing Ohio’s response to WNV. The state’s first case of a bird infected with WNV was identified in 2001, and last year, the virus had a significant impact on Ohio’s bird, horse, and human populations. 

As a veterinary internal medicine specialist whose research and clinical work focuses on equine neurologic diseases, Saville’s knowledge of WNV has put him in demand as a speaker at equine conferences and meetings across North America. In January, Saville’s presentation on the virus was one of the most well-attended sessions at this year’s Alberta Horse Breeders and Owners Conference in Red Deer, Alta