EHV Outbreak at Virginia Equine Facility

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services noted that on February 1, 2018, a horse boarding stable in Chesterfield County was placed under quarantine after a horse with fever and neurologic signs tested positive for the equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) that causes equine herpes myeloncephalopathy (EHM). Since that time, nine horses in the stable have developed fevers, but none have exhibited neurologic signs. Three of the horses were tested for EHV and one tested positive. Testing for the remainder of the febrile horses will continue over the next several days. 

The facility will remain under quarantine for 21 days past the last positive finding of EHV. 

The febrile horses have been isolated on the farm and are under veterinary care. Four of these febrile horses have been transferred under quarantine to the isolation unit at the Marion Dupont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Virginia, for additional care and monitoring. Because these horses were admitted under the established isolation protocol, the Equine Medical Center is not under quarantine and is admitting and treating patients normally. 

Neither of these facilities pose a risk to the Virginia horse population.

This is a followup to the initial reported neurologic horse on January 31.  

The Equine Disease Communication Center (EDCC) works to protect horses and the horse industry from the threat of infectious diseases in North America. The communication system is designed to seek and report real time information about disease outbreaks similar to how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alerts the human population about diseases in people.