EI Update and Comments - 31 October 2007 - Franz Venhaus

The Equine Influenza crisis is far from over but there are some encouraging signs that the virus can be beaten if we hold our nerve, 'do the right thing' in terms of biosecurity and if vaccination progresses as planned in a targeted way. I have seen graphs that confirm this.

Would it not be great if the 'good news' was published widely even if projection have to be qualified with statements like 'barring major outbreaks'? There is a lot of information available for the privileged few at State and Federal level. Why not make it available in edited form to the public? And what about agreeing on a consistent approach to the same issues across States?

Vaccine

We get a lot of e-mails from members putting forward their views on what should happen with vaccination. (By the way, I am sorry to say that I simply can't answer all the ones I receive personally on a daily basis.) Please note that the National Management Group (NMG) agrees with the advice provided by the Consultative Committee on Emergency Animal Disease (CCEAD) that the 'canarypox' variety of vaccine is the most appropriate to use, rather than the 'Fort Dodge' version, which is an inactivated vaccine.
The canarypox vaccine gives better protection than inactivated products; nevertheless, there is evidence that this vaccine does not prevent ALL horses from becoming infected. The vaccine does suppress virus shedding, but does not always prevent it. Broader vaccination could thus do more harm than good in the current situation, particularly if the inactivated vaccine is used.
The other advantage of the canary pox vaccine is that it enables us to distinguish whether the antibodies a horse has developed are due to infection or due to vaccination.

Animal Health Australia (AHA), the regulatory body for vaccine issues, requires much stricter procedures for the (refrigerated) storage and transport, the administration and the "audit trail" of the canary pox vaccine than it does for the inactivated vaccine. The process of vaccinating also takes a lot more time because of microchipping and the documentation that is required. As a result, many doses of vaccine have not been used as yet because of the time it takes to "deliver" them. The roll-out to uninfected horses in the amber and red zones will be further slowed down as the second vaccination becomes due now for horses that have already been vaccinated. After we put a request to the NMG for broader vaccination of "equestrian" horses, there was some acceptance of our general argument, particularly in view of our Olympic preparation program. We wanted to make sure that a large portion of "competition horses" would not become infected if there were further outbreaks, because an infection would set back their training and competition program by several months.
We have now been asked to provide a "business case" that shows that we can comply with a large number of quite stringent conditions. There will be more telephone conferences on the subject before the situation is resolved.
Movement Control

Contrary to what many people believe, vaccination will not necessarily allow freedom of movement between zones and between States. Those of you, who have studied the material available on the various DPI (or equivalent) web sites, will have noticed that rules and regulations often differ between the jurisdictions even when they are in very similar circumstances. On top of this, some of the requirements appear so draconian that one wonders whether they were based on scientific risk assessment. I don't know whether we will ever achieve reasonable uniformity of approach among the States and Territories, but let us at least challenge some of the assumptions on which the rules are based and how they can then be different depending on where you live. We cannot always accept systems and procedures to be modelled on how things are done in the racing sector. Decision-makers need to learn and understand how our sport functions.

We have to question why the same protocol that has been used for the import of horses from overseas is now going to apply to horses that move from an infected to an uninfected zone or State within Australia. Is this requirement based on scientific risk assessment? Please note that we are talking about a minimum of 14 days in Pre-Export Quarantine (PEQ) in the infected zone and at least another 14 days Post-Arrival Quarantine (PAQ) in the uninfected zone. Special quarantine stations are supposed to be established for that purpose. We heard today that onwe of these is being set up within the Werribee equestrian centre.

Could someone please explain why it will take more than four weeks to establish whether a group of horses is infected and is shedding the virus? My understanding of the overseas import quarantine requirements was that they existed because horses came together in Australia from various places around the world where quarantine conditions and test accuracy could not always be guaranteed. The PAQ was supposed to confirm the horses' freedom of the disease. But in Australia, if for example horses were transported from infected areas to a quarantine station for PEQ, why do we require PAQ when they get to the uninfected zone? The current requirement virtually precludes any meaningful 'national' competition.
Most of the outbreaks in October have been blamed on human transfer of the virus. Now there are quarantine rules for coaches and trainers asking for 48 hours or even 72 hours (in at least one State) of isolation from horses before these people can give a coaching clinic in a disease-free State. Are we really so unsophisticated that we can't devise other methods than a three-day loss of income for coaches before they can teach in other States? In the meantime, ordinary folks can go to an infected property and then to an uninfected property and sneeze all over the horses there and no-one can really stop them.

So let’s work on a movement control system that is based on scientific evidence rather than one that reflects the views of other pressure groups.

Franz Venhaus