Potomac Horse Fever: Don’t Ignore Fevers!

Summer and fall are key seasons for the appearance of Potomac horse fever, which is caused by the bacterium Neorickettsia risticii. Don’t be fooled by the name; Potomac horse fever originally was identified in 1979 as a sporadic disease

Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Summer and fall are key seasons for the appearance of Potomac horse fever, which is caused by the bacterium Neorickettsia risticii. Don’t be fooled by the name; Potomac horse fever originally was identified in 1979 as a sporadic disease affecting horses residing in the eastern United States near the Potomac River, but since that time it has been diagnosed throughout the United States and Canada.


“Don’t ignore fevers,” warned Nathan Slovis, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky. “If you have an animal in a pasture that spikes a fever (102-105°F), rule out other causes and test it for Potomac horse fever.”


Slovis has seen several cases this year already in Kentucky, although he stressed this is not an outbreak, just the normal course of events in hot summer weather. One horse came from the racetrack and others were show or pleasure horses at pasture.


Research has shown that up to 80% of confirmed Potomac horse fever cases eventually die, some because of secondary laminitis

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?
303 votes · 303 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!