Heath Ryan expresses his views on vaccination.

Heath Ryan has a lot to lose during this out break of Equine Influenza. He has worked all his life to build up his wonderful stud, produce excellent sport horses and strive to make an Australian Olympic team, with more passion and enthusiasm than you will ever find. However, poor management of the EI outbreak could take much of this from him, so it is interesting to know that Heath believes “vaccinating the whole country is a bugger of a way to go”. We spoke to Heath this morning to get his views on vaccinating.

“I have been told that early next week the DPI are going to start to vaccinate in an exclusion zone, like back burning in a bush fire. I believe this is the best step forward and for me personally is a win-win situation. So far we are still EI free, however it is only 2km away and in Scone it is spreading 2kms a day in a westerly direction. With the westerly winds yesterday we would expect to start seeing symptoms in our horses on Wednesday. If we were not to get the flu now but did so, say in November then people who have had it now would have competition horses fit by the time we are just starting the quarantine stage. I still believe vaccinating the whole country is not the way we should go, nevertheless there is huge pressure to start doing this. We still have a chance to eradicate it, but once we start a nation wide vaccination program that chance is lost forever. Australia would then be reliant on the vaccine and it is just not good enough to keep the disease away, pockets of it would always be breaking out as people failed to keep up the vaccination program.

“People are just not taking this situation seriously enough and want a quick fix solution. The DPI is starting to get a handle on it, initially they had a fundamentally good action plan for the horses, but the people have always been the problem with the initial spread of the disease.

“The politicians do not understand. They have commented that very little of the first 1.2 million grant for instant relief has been taken up. I asked one of them if they know how you take a horses temperature, their answer was no. You stick a thermometer up their bum and they are armed with lethal back legs, I told him. We are taking 200 temperatures every day and the horses armoury is getting better every day with back legs, front legs and teeth. We are at war on the front line, trying to stay alive, not sitting at home looking how to get money on the computer.”

On that poignant note we left Heath on the war front and will speak to him again early next week to see what is happening about the “back burning”.

• Please note that Heath’s property is in a unique situation. Heath had eight horses at the Maitland ODE on the 18th and 19th of August and therefore has been in quarantine virtually ever since. He is surrounded by properties effected by EI but none of his 200 horses have shown any symptoms of the virus.