OGDEN – Utah agriculture officials say they believe they contained an outbreak of a serious horse disease that was confirmed in the state earlier this month after the sick horse attended an event in the county of Weber.
Dr. Dean Taylor, the state veterinarian, said equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy, or EHM, was confirmed in a horse in Utah on March 7th. EHM is a disease of the EHV-1 virus that can be fatal or cause serious complications and is spread through nasal drops, aerosol drops or through various shared spaces, including stops, water or transport vehicles.
State officials did not disclose where in the state the sick horse was reported out of respect for the horse owner because the horse is kept in a private facility. After further investigation, they found a second horse on the property that also tested positive for EHM.
State officials said they were not exactly sure how the originally infected horse got sick. The virus can start internally due to stress or spread from horse to horse.
“We really don’t know where this started right now,” Taylor said. “Both horses are doing well. The outbreak is limited to that facility and we are well beyond the two-week period we would be concerned about.”
The first positive test raised concerns within the state’s horse-owning community because he had attended events at the Golden Spike Events Center in Ogden on February 20 and just before the horse’s owner noticed that the horse was showing signs of EHM.
Meanwhile, Taylor said there were also rumors floating around that a horse died due to the spread of the virus. He said he also began receiving phone calls on March 10 from concerned horse owners who said their horses showed signs of the virus.
As a precaution, the state had a barrel race scheduled for the Golden Event Spike Center canceled that week. The event center posted on social media on March 11 that it would not hold any events until a week later as a precaution, leading to the cancellation of more than half a dozen events.
It allowed the state Department of Agriculture to further investigate the situation. The department identified six facilities with possibly sick horses.
In a public letter about the situation Monday, Taylor wrote that the only premise that turned positive was the “originally positive premise.” No other horses were confirmed to be sick with the virus, including those that could have been exposed on February 20th.
Check out the letter below with an update on EHV-1 at our facilities.
Posted by Golden Spike Event Center on Monday, March 22, 2021
“Currently this outbreak appears to be contained,” the letter states. “No additional cases have appeared at any event at the Golden Spike Event Center and we are now past the period where we would expect to have seen cases.”
The letter also says the agency did not believe it was “necessary to restrict equine events in the future.”
He also told KSL.com on Tuesday that there was a dead horse, but the state was unable to do any lab work on the horse to confirm the virus nor were there any connections linking that horse to the originally infected horse.
Taylor said the facility with the two infected horses “has done an excellent job” in quarantining its horses since the original diagnosis. The facility is also about to complete a 21-day preventive quarantine.
He also praised Weber County’s policy of disinfecting the event center after each event, as it probably took into account why the disease has only been found in one place.
“Once the horse was there (February 20), the entire facility had been disinfected before the next event,” he said. “So it was probably, in retrospect, very beneficial in containing this disease.”
As for the EHM itself, it is treated with care, such as providing fluids and anti-inflammatory agents. The state shared a pamphlet on how horse owners can handle EHV-1 and EHM after their last possible outbreak in 2019.