Hurricane EI and the expansion of the purple zone

I was at the meeting and what is worrying me big time is the fact that they are busy turning so many areas to purple and allowing movements to as they said "get things back to normal"

Allowing movement, any movement before two to three weeks elapsing with no new infections notified is the short road to EI becoming endemic.

As they said at the meeting there are 1,500 horses on the data base that are still free of EI.

As well the tens of thousands that have had it and recovering are still vulnerable to any form of the virus having mutated. The more horses it has gone from in its path of travel the greater chance this has or will occur.

The big fear is if mutation has occurred anywhere, permitting movement to happen will risk a horse still shedding who may have a mutated strain to spread it to horses that although have had it and recovered will be sitting ducks for the new strain.

For example this was posted yesterday. If verified to be true. We have the mutation scenario already. Although at this stage we only have this unverified post.


--- In OzArabs@yahoogroups.com, "bourkemicheal" wrote:

I have heard that EI has revisited a property in Brisbane today and it
has the DPI in real fizzz that it could back so soon and there horses
are alot sicker this time around has any one els heard about this
today...

As for the line we have been fed that being disorganised is the reason we were left totally out in the cold the line being "the racing industry had one strong voice etc etc"

Well I discovered the Ausvet plan was that all racing horses would be protected first because the TAB was such a huge government earner.

The Ausvet plan was the protection of racing horses, the cut off no vaccinations for any horses (even if in training) if it did not have a minimum of 1 start.
So there are a huge heap of TB owners and trainers with unvaccinated youngsters that were being prepared for their first seasons racing. Where was their voice?
As silenced as ours, yet their supposedly strong lobby left em to cop it same as us.



Also that the decision to turn the vaccines over to the TB industry to administer was out of the hands of the DPI, they were distributed even before the DPI received what was left. That these decisions were Federal.

Also that the royal commission will bring out the fact (I’ll believe this when I hear it stated at the commission, even though I know its true as friends horses were among them) that not just one property was directly infected via wind transmission from the infected Eastern Creek TB stallion but other properties in the area as well.
So when I asked why is Eastern Creek operating in such a densely populated horse area, should it not be closed down and moved or at least a large horse and animal free buffer zone been in place to be told that as the facility is Federal, NSW has no input or control over it or its policies.

Even as we speak Eastern Creek is still taking in imports to serve their quasi quarantine in this glorified agistment property,
If another strain of EI or goodness knows what else that wind, birds mosquito’s and/or flies can distribute my friends horses are there to catch it.

Make no mistake; this virus is not just being humanly transmitted.
If the virus as they stated can survive on your clothes for 3 days (think that was the time given) then it will certainly survive for the same period on the starlings, sparrows, pigeons and herons I see keeping my horses company during the day.
My conversation with the DPI revealed they are well aware that flies are another vector for spread and are hoping to have the virus stopped before the fly season is in full swing. As for air transmission if you missed it, it can spread for 2 k in warm conditions and 8 k in cold

Keep up the lockdown is my belief if we are to succeed.

Getting back to "normal" won’t ever be normal if we start moving again before outbreaks have ceased

Regards Sandy