Vaccinations a Must
I have to ask the question why is it not compulsory for ANY horses travelling overseas or coming into this country to be vaccinated against Equine Influenza ?
Having grown up in a horse racing family in the UK where vaccination for EI is compulsory for ALL racehorses, regardless of whether they are travelling overseas or not, it amazes me that in a country like Australia where quarantine rules for passengers at airports are so strict that, for horses, it has been until now so slack in allowing ‘shuttle stallions’ and racehorses, travelling to and from Hong Kong & Japan for the big race meetings not to be vaccinated.
In the UK even pleasure horses and the like are usually vaccinated, at the owners discretion, so I think it is high time that the EI vaccine be made readily available at an affordable price so we can all take the preventative measure of vaccinating our horses in the future to prevent this type of epidemic from happening again.
With new cases of EI still surfacing every few days I don’t believe any horse racing should be taking place until the spread has stopped. However, it would appear that as always ‘money talks’ and when the big guns involved in the racing industry make a fuss, suddenly racing is back on again despite the rest of us being quarantined at home indefinitely.
Lets all learn from this epidemic and get our horses vaccinated in the future.
Kerry Landers (Jimboomba, Qld)
Having grown up in a horse racing family in the UK where vaccination for EI is compulsory for ALL racehorses, regardless of whether they are travelling overseas or not, it amazes me that in a country like Australia where quarantine rules for passengers at airports are so strict that, for horses, it has been until now so slack in allowing ‘shuttle stallions’ and racehorses, travelling to and from Hong Kong & Japan for the big race meetings not to be vaccinated.
In the UK even pleasure horses and the like are usually vaccinated, at the owners discretion, so I think it is high time that the EI vaccine be made readily available at an affordable price so we can all take the preventative measure of vaccinating our horses in the future to prevent this type of epidemic from happening again.
With new cases of EI still surfacing every few days I don’t believe any horse racing should be taking place until the spread has stopped. However, it would appear that as always ‘money talks’ and when the big guns involved in the racing industry make a fuss, suddenly racing is back on again despite the rest of us being quarantined at home indefinitely.
Lets all learn from this epidemic and get our horses vaccinated in the future.
Kerry Landers (Jimboomba, Qld)
posted by Horse Deals at
2:49 pm
3 Comments:
Some states are still clean and if we start vaccinating it will spread Nationally as you can no longer tell if a horse is carrying the virus, and it is impossible for 100% vaccination. Yes it is Costing alot with the current situation, and i do sincerely feel for those of you in QLD and NSW. However it could cost a lot Aust wide. Lets try to stamp it out first and see how we go!
I was told that once a horse is vaccinated you cannot test for EI as the antibodies show up anyway. Apparently this is how the virus "escaped" quarrantine - in a vaccinated imported horse that had the virus. That alone still doesn't explain how the quarrantine people missed the symptoms though.
I guess that now we have it here it probably makes sense to vaccinate as it will spread regardless.
All imported horses are vaccinated including the ones currently at Eastern Creek. All horses in Japan are vaccinated. Vaccination did not stop the outbreak in Japan or prevent infection in Eastern Creek. Problem is that most of the vaccines do not work.
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