Vaccination Schedules for Adult Horses

As desirable as it would be to have a national (or even regional) one-size-fits-all protocol for vaccinating adult horses, vaccination recommendations are best tailored to individual circumstances. These primarily include the areas of the countr

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As desirable as it would be to have a national (or even regional) one-size-fits-all protocol for vaccinating adult horses, vaccination recommendations are best tailored to individual circumstances. These primarily include the areas of the country the horse lives in or travels to (the specific disease risks that abide in said area) and whether a horse is exposed to transient populations.

“Some vaccines are given based on specific geographical factors, a good example of which is the widespread advocacy for vaccination against West Nile encephalitis for horses in the USA during the past few years,” explains Philip J. Johnson, BVSc (Hons), MS, Dipl. ACVIM, MRCVS, professor of internal medicine in the Equine Medicine and Surgery department at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

When West Nile virus (WNV) first hit the United States, it was considered to be a regional problem, thus after the development of the WNV vaccine, recommendations were to vaccinate horses only in endemic areas. Since then, WNV has spread throughout North America, as have recommendations for protective measures against the disease.

Sometimes unique local conditions dictate which vaccinations are added to a protocol. “Horses in Kentucky tend to be vaccinated against botulism to a far greater extent than horses in many other parts of the country,” Johnson continues, “because botulism has been recognized as a common and important condition in parts of Kentucky. Moreover, there exists a vaccine for type B botulism—the type that tends to occur in that part of the country

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Marcia King is an award-winning freelance writer based in Ohio who specializes in equine, canine, and feline veterinary topics. She’s schooled in hunt seat, dressage, and Western pleasure.

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