I’ve received a lot of emails over the past 24 hours about the recent report of equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) neurological disease in an Ontario horse. The two main questions are whether there’s an outbreak and whether horse owners in Ontario should be concerned.

I don’t have any firsthand knowledge about this case (or any information beyond what’s been written elsewhere), but as far as I know, this is just a single sporadic case. That doesn’t mean an outbreak can’t occur, but most often, these just occur singly.

Whether there’s cause for concern is a tough question to answer. Yes, EHV-1 can be a serious problem, causing neurological disease in adult horses, abortion in pregnant mares, and severe disease in neonatal foals. Yet, at the same time, it’s an endemic disease that most often occurs as sporadic cases rather than large outbreaks (people just don’t hear about single cases as often, although they are now reported a lot more than they were a few years ago). The EHV-1 virus is very common and can be found in its dormant form in a large percentage of horses, so it’s not like some pathogens with which an unexposed population can suddenly be threatened when a single case is identified. In general I pay close attention to EHV-1 cases, but they are not a cause for panic. If a case occurs, we need to see if some broader issue is at play, and put steps in place to limit the problem, but we don’t need to cause massive disruption. In short, we want to ensure that good surveillance and infection control measures are in place, but not freak out in the process.

People have really taken a 180 degree turn in how they handle EHV-1 over the past 10 years or so. I don’t think we see EHV-1 neurological disease any more than when I was a resident. Back then, we saw sporadic cases and the odd small cluster, and people didn’t get too worked up about it in terms of the risk of transmission. Outbreaks, such as one I can remember associated with a large Ontario Standardbred yearling sale, certainly got lots of attention, but it was short-lived. Things changed (for good reason) based on some large, high-profile outbreaks in the last decade.  It’s not known why such outbreaks now seem to be more common.

Anyway, if you live in Ontario and have a horse, don’t panic. Your horse is probably at no greater risk today than it was last month, assuming it wasn’t in contact with the affected horse (which was diagnosed in early April). Virtually every horse is at some degree of EHV risk every day, but the odds of disease occurring are very low.

Some key prevention tips include:

• Use good general infection control practices to reduce exposure of horses to pathogens brought in by newly arrived horses.
• Observe your horses regularly and if there are any problems, isolate the horse and have a veterinarian examine it ASAP.
• When travelling to shows, races or other events, take measures to reduce direct and indirect contact between horses.