Herpesvirus Update: Ocala Crowd Attends EHV Meeting, Horse Recovering

Yesterday (Dec. 20), Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services officials held a meeting to address concerns and management issues related to the recent equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) outbreak in Wellington. More than 300 people

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Yesterday (Dec. 20), Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services officials held a meeting to address concerns and management issues related to the recent equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1) outbreak in Wellington. More than 300 people attended the meeting at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company.

“The purpose of the meeting was to get information out (to the public) and reduce any panic within the equestrian community,” said Mark Fagan, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. “Over 300 people showed up to the meeting, from all aspects of the industry, from veterinary to supply. The idea was to let people who deal directly with horses know what they need to do to prevent exposure, and what to do if the horse has been exposed and is showing unusual signs.”

One horse in Ocala is showing neurologic signs, along with six others in Palm Beach County (Wellington and Jupiter, Fla.). The affected horse in Ocala was previously based at Calder Race Course. This horse was exposed to an animal with EHV-1 while being treated for an unrelated illness at an equine clinic in Wellington. It returned to Calder, where it stayed for five days, before being shipped to Tuxedo Farm in Ocala.

“Once it arrived at Tuxedo farms, as it was being offloaded from the trailer, they noticed the horse was not walking as it should, and that was the first indication of problems,” Fagan said.

According to Fagan, this horse is alive, isolated, and recovering. The number of deaths connected to EHV-1 in Florida remains at three, which is unchanged since last Friday.

“There are no new deaths (as of Dec. 21),” Fagan said. “There are eight suspect cases that have pending lab results right now–all in Palm Beach County.

“We feel that we have a solid handle on the trace-forward movement of the animals, and our inspectors are out there monitoring it on a day-to-day basis,” Fagan said. “We’re confident that we’re making progress on this, but we’re just not ready to say we’ve contained it yet.”



For more information on EHV-1, check out our free PDF library of EHV-related articles including images, or all our archived EHV-1 articles on TheHorse.com

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Written by:

Erin Ryder is a former news editor of The Horse: Your Guide To Equine Health Care.

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