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  Discussion on Vaccinating after illness
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Posted on Wednesday, Apr 18, 2001 - 11:30 am:

Late last year we had, what we believe to be, rhino go through the barn. The first horse to get sick had a realy hard time of it and at that time we thought it was the flu. Latter others got sick to a lesser degree and we jumped on it and got acute and convalesant stage blood titers done. These titers showed elevated rhino antibodies. I have allways held the belief that it is not good to vaccinate a sick horse soo... my question is: Now that they all appear to be done passing it around how long should I wait to give vaccinations?

Posted on Thursday, Apr 19, 2001 - 6:50 am:

If you know the cause of the illness you might consider skipping that vaccine this year as the immune system is already revved up and reactions to the vaccine, both small and major, may be a little more likely. It's a small thing but if you are sure.
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Apr 19, 2001 - 10:55 am:

Well... how much predictive weight would you put in an increased level of Rhino antibodies in one horse who showed the same symptoms as the rest of the barn within a 2 month period of upper respitory gunk?

Seccondly, if only half the barn got sick but due to a comon watter source and group pasture turn out (I would have to assume) all were adequetly exposed, would you withhold the vacc on only those that were clinical or on all who were likely to be exposed?

Posted on Friday, Apr 20, 2001 - 7:33 am:

How much increased and were the others tested? The point here is that, if I was sure they had X in the recent past, I would not vaccinate for X. There is no work to suggest how long one should wait or what the increase in complication rate would be but this is exactly the mechanism of purpura reactions and may predispose to anaphalaxis.

If the barn had a good strong case and I was convinced everyone exposed I would probably skip it is all the horses. However, rhino has a tendency to wander through a barn rather than spread like wild fire, if the horses were picking it up willy nilly I think I would just withold the vaccine on those that had the disease. I would probably make an exception for the pregnant mares, who would receive their scheduled killed EHV1-EHV4 (I do not use PneumabortK) shots figuring the abortion aspect outweighed the complication aspect.
DrO
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