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HorseAdvice.com » Diseases of Horses » Nervous System » Incoordination, Weakness, Spasticity, Tremors » EHV-1 (Equine Herpes) Myeloencephalopathy »
  Discussion on Herpes and vaccinations
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Posted on Saturday, Nov 18, 2000 - 7:58 pm:

recently a horse in our barn tested postive for EHV 1 and 2. By his symptoms, it appears that he has had it for a long time, as he has been a little weak in the hindend for quite a few months.(He never had an outright "attack") Since his testing he has been switched over to an all natural/organically grown feed, and he has gotten better. I do not want to get into the merits of this feeding program versus other programs (well, I do, but not here) but the owner of the horse was told never to vaccinate her horse for EHV again. In the article that you wrote however, you mentioned that vaccinating horses with EHV reduced the shedding of the virus (did I read this right?). The owner of the horse was told that by vaccinating her horse for EHV, or any other disease in fact, would suppress her horse's immune system and leave him open to another onslaught of the disease. Is this true? We are a performance barn, and do have horse's coming in and out of here on a regular basis. All our other horse's are vaccinated, should we insist on this horse being vaccinated too, so as to reduce the possible spread of this disease?

Posted on Sunday, Nov 19, 2000 - 10:07 am:

I have to be very careful as you are telling me third hand what you understand the vet to be saying. There are two issues here you are confusing:
1) What is best for this horse?
2) What will reduce the incidence and therefore shedding of EHV?

It seems from your post that the vet thinks the weakness in this horse is due to EHV myelitis. You may be misunderstaning what he is saying: this is a disease with a strong immune component and there is ongoing discussion of whether vaccination has a role in the disease and what that role is: good or bad. Some suggest that vaccination will stimulate the immune system and therefore exacerbate the disease while it is ongoing.

By vaccinating you stimulate the immune syustem reducing the incidence of the disease and shedding, at least if the vaccine is any good.
DrO
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