Once again, an equine hospital is under quarantine because of equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1). There have been a number of such incidents this year, highlighting both the increasing concern with this important pathogen and perhaps more transparency and willingness on the part of hospitals to take aggressive infection control measures when it is detected.

The latest incident involves the University of Tennessee Equine Hospital. The entire situation is related to identification of EHV-1 infection in one horse that was admitted on September 15 and euthanized a few hours later because of severe and progressive neurological disease. The next day, the Tennessee state veterinarian implemented a seven-day quarantine, while the hospital voluntarily implemented a 14-day quarantine. Seven days is pretty short and if you’re concerned enough that you think quarantine is needed – if it’s going to be done at all, it should be done right (i.e. for longer than a week).

At last report, there was no evidence of transmission to other horses.  Presumably university personnel are closely watching horses in the hospital and are hopefully  in contact with people who had horses they after the EHV-1 horse was admitted but before quarantine was implemented.

The need for facility closure or quarantine is always something of debate. EHV-1 should be a containable problem with prompt recognition of affected horses, proper isolation facilities and compliance with infection control procedures. Identifying infectious horses is a key aspect, as they are not always screaming "I have EHV!" when you see them. If a horse with EHV isn’t identified as a potentially infectious animal and isolated from the start, the risk of transmission goes up. In this case, it was stated that the horse was kept in a "separate area of the equine hospital." It’s not clear whether this was in an isolation unit or not. If it was admitted directly to isolation and was handled with appropriate protocols, the risk of other horses being infected should be very low. Given the time frame involved (it was only in the hospital for a few hours), even if it was in the main hospital, the likelihood of transmission to other horses is probably still relatively low, but it’s certainly possible.

From a disease control standpoint, it’s much better to be overly aggressive at the start while you are sorting out what’s going on rather than sitting back and hoping for the best. While this often results in negative publicity, it’s better than ending up with an outbreak which results in even worse publicity, as well as more sick animals.