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Development and Validation of a Quantitative PCR Method for Equid Herpesvirus-2 Diagnostics in Respiratory Fluids
Published on: March 17, 2016
Epidemiological Aspects of Equid Herpesvirus-Associated Myeloencephalopathy (EHM) Outbreaks
Eva Klouth1, Yury Zablotski1, Jessica L Petersen2
1Center for Clinical Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians University, 80539 Munich, Germany.
Abstract:
Equid Herpesvirus Myeloencephalopathy (EHM) is a multifactorial disease following an EHV-1 infection in Equidae. We investigated a total of 589 horses on 13 premises in Europe in search of risk factors for the development of EHM. We found that fever (p < 0.001), increasing age (p = 0.032), and female sex (p = 0.042) were risk factors for EHM in a logistic mixed model. Some breeds had a decreased risk to develop EHM compared to others (Shetland and Welsh ponies; p = 0.017; p = 0.031), and fewer EHV-1-vaccinated horses were affected by EHM compared to unvaccinated horses (p = 0.02). Data evaluation was complex due to high variability between outbreaks with regards to construction and environment; viral characteristics and the virus's transmissibility were affected by operational management. This study confirms earlier suspected host-specific risk factors, and our data support the benefit of high vaccine coverage at high-traffic boarding facilities.
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