Vaccination Policies

There are heaps of complaints about racehorses getting vaccinated. Reason they are vaccinated is to protect racing not the health of the individual horse. To get racing back to normal they are going to have to send horses into purple zone to fill the fields at Randwick etc. Need to ensure they won't get infected when they go into training. Randwick horses have all got sick - need to spell and won't be back for a few months.

The lack of racing is a huge cost to racing industry, associated businesses and state coffers - hence they got preference. BTW this is a cost caused by the disease not the control program - something that the detractors overlook.

Although everyone wants blanket vaccination in the green zones, we do not have adequate numbers of vets or vaccine to do this. An additional problem with blanket vaccination in green zones with killed vaccine - we would not be able to detect the spot fires.

We are having to put priorities on vaccine usage - the highest priority is for buffer zones. We have just started to vaccinate the uninfected horses in the red and purple zones. Priority will be round the edges of the purple zone to widen the buffers starting around Scone. Also to be vaccinated will be high value, high risk non-racing horses in the purple zone. A large riding school will be among the first properties protected.

We have put in a large order for killed vaccine - how and where it is used will depend on the situation when it gets here.

Rod Hoare
Industry Liaison