EVA Confirmed In Kentucky

An outbreak of equine viral arteritis (EVA) was confirmed on one Thoroughbred farm on March 20.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

An outbreak of equine viral arteritis (EVA) was confirmed on one Thoroughbred farm on March 20. Kentucky State Veterinarian Don Notter was notified about mid-day.

The outbreak appears to be restricted to one barn of mares at Crystal Springs Farm in Paris, Kentucky, with no evidence of transmission off the farm. Appropriate restrictions have been put in place. The source of the infection has not been identified, but officials have begun epidemiologic studies.

Two states–Kentucky and New York–have specific control programs for equine viral arteritis (EVA), a highly contagious venereal disease that can cause mares to abort and a high percentage of infected stallions to be persistent shedders of the virus in their semen. These control programs are regulated by law in those states, and require horse owners to follow protocols for breeding. Symptoms of the disease include fever, respiratory illness, ocular inflammation, edema (swelling, especially of the limbs), birth of weak or sick foals, and abortion. This virus can be passed by sexual contact or through respiratory inhalation.

The good news is that EVA is a very manageable disease. There’s a modified live virus vaccine that can prevent a horse from getting EVA. The bad news is that outbreaks continue to occur in populations of horses which haven’t been vaccinated

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Kimberly S. Brown is the editor of EquiManagement/EquiManagement.com and the group publisher of the Equine Health Network at Equine Network LLC.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

Where do you primarily feed your horse?
277 votes · 277 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!