Horse rabies in Florida
Marion County (Florida) public health personnel recently issued a rabies alert after a horse in the area tested positive for the virus. It’s a standard alert, emphasizing avoiding contact with wildlife, reducing things that attract wildlife to houses (e.g. accessible pet food or garbage) and recommending vaccination. Interestingly, while this alert was prompted by a case of rabies in a horse, it only mentions vaccination of dogs, cats and ferrets. That may have been because it was an off-the-shelf alert, not really tailored to this situation, but it shows how horses can be overlooked when it comes to rabies.
Fortunately, rabies is a rare disease in horses. In 2010, there were 37 reported cases of equine rabies in the US and only one in Canada (two Canadian cases have been identified so far this year). That’s a very low rate, especially considering the number of horses out there, but it’s still more cases than there should be for a very serious yet highly preventable disease.
Unfortunately, rarity sometimes breeds complacency, so despite the fact that rabies is invariably fatal in horses and rabid horses pose a risk to people, vaccination of horses is often overlooked. While rabies is rare in horses, rabies vaccination shouldn’t be rare. Every horse in a rabies endemic region (or that might be traveling to such a region) should be vaccinated against rabies. It’s cheap insurance against a very dangerous and deadly disease.
http://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/admin/trackback/266689
