Lack of Knowledge
I am a small time breeder in NSW. Although the EI virus is still some 300km away from us, at the moment, I think we are all getting sick and tired of hearing that the horse stand still in NSW is working. I have just been reading another web site on the EI virus and it has stated that in the last 24hr's from today (14/09/07) that there have been another 300 properties added to the infected list.
We are fortunate that we do not rely on the horse industry as our sole income, however their are many people that do, we have many friends that do and they are hurting..
I believe it is only a matter of time before the virus reaches our area (Riverina area) and then onto Victoria. The Government must take some fast action on vaccinating all the remaining horses that are unaffected in NSW and all other states. The virus is here now, and it will be here to stay. It's not only the racing industry effected, every single person that owns a horse is having their lives turned upside down in some way.
This situation we are all finding ourselves in needs to be classified as a complete disaster. Over the next coming months there will be many, many events cancelled in every equine field, most of these events will be completely lost for the whole of the 2007-2008 season, and in turn this will be history lost.
We must work smarter in trying to deal with this virus, the lack of information being transmitted to all horse people is huge. For example, when the virus first broke out there were a lot of people within the first week, in our area, still going about their business, as far as they knew this only affected race horses. They had no idea they were doing anything wrong. What about anyone that doesn't have access to the internet? I have spent a lot of my time browsing different sites since this broke out, and the amount of updated information even on the net is dwindling. Maybe the government officials are getting sick of it.
I am sure I speak for all horse people in Australia, we have enough to deal with, with the ongoing drought, let alone something like this which should never have happened in the first place.
Andrea
We are fortunate that we do not rely on the horse industry as our sole income, however their are many people that do, we have many friends that do and they are hurting..
I believe it is only a matter of time before the virus reaches our area (Riverina area) and then onto Victoria. The Government must take some fast action on vaccinating all the remaining horses that are unaffected in NSW and all other states. The virus is here now, and it will be here to stay. It's not only the racing industry effected, every single person that owns a horse is having their lives turned upside down in some way.
This situation we are all finding ourselves in needs to be classified as a complete disaster. Over the next coming months there will be many, many events cancelled in every equine field, most of these events will be completely lost for the whole of the 2007-2008 season, and in turn this will be history lost.
We must work smarter in trying to deal with this virus, the lack of information being transmitted to all horse people is huge. For example, when the virus first broke out there were a lot of people within the first week, in our area, still going about their business, as far as they knew this only affected race horses. They had no idea they were doing anything wrong. What about anyone that doesn't have access to the internet? I have spent a lot of my time browsing different sites since this broke out, and the amount of updated information even on the net is dwindling. Maybe the government officials are getting sick of it.
I am sure I speak for all horse people in Australia, we have enough to deal with, with the ongoing drought, let alone something like this which should never have happened in the first place.
Andrea
posted by Horse Deals at
10:36 am
1 Comments:
I have read with considerable interest, the comments posted on Horse Deals blogger site. I find it fascinating that here are concerned and committed horse owners who want and need information who essentially have to rely upon a blog site to receive up to date information and also have to resort to asking Horse Deals to find out what they need to know.
I feel for the hundreds of horse owners in Queensland with less than no information to assist them and I have heard from the Sec of a large Campdrafting organisation which received no communication from NSW, and had to rely on daily updates from Vic DPI.
How on earth is this being managed with any veracity? My daily job is Risk Management and frankly, I am appalled at what I am hearing and reading regarding this outbreak. I would hate to think what would happen if there was a human influenza pandemic, or if Foot and Mouth disease reached our shores.
Quite simply, this should never have happened, but as we know with all risk management human error contributes to over 80% of all failures. This was not a case of if but when.
The appalling lack of leadership and direction from either the State or Federal Governments is breathtaking. One supposes that is what DPI is there for.
The main point of all this is what can we do to prevent this happening again? The virus, probably unfortunately, is here to stay - vaccination is one control and with the implementation of other controls, I daresay future outbreaks can be safely managed as has occured in other parts of the world where they live with this daily.
Everyone has their opinion - some will want vaccination yesterday, others won't want it at all. Much like human influenza - sadly, the results of vaccination in humans has been shown to be effective yet in any given population such as even in healthcare where vaccination is free, only about 50% of staff will be vaccinated in a year. What hope do we have for the future?
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