RABIES THREAT IN HORSES.

Real-Life Examples of a Real-Life Threat Although rabies is a rare disease in domestic animals, due to its uniformly fatal nature, encounters remain as vivid memories. These are two real-life examples from my own experiences. Case 1: Human Exposure We had a "down horse" emergency case due to arrive at the John Thomas Vaughan Large Animal Teaching Hospital at Auburn University. Prior to arrival, the owners told us that the previous day, the horse was at a 4-H show being ridden by a young girl, and he seemed a little off: slightly colicky in the morning and then lame in the afternoon. The following morning the horse was ataxic (incoordinated) and their regular veterinarian recommended referral to Auburn. The owners set out on the four-hour drive to our hospital, but two hours prior to arrival the horse went down in the trailer. The owner called us to say that the horses' condition had deteriorated and he was now biting viciously at his extended foreleg; he also notified us that he did not think the horse was worth saving and that he was going to return home to humanely shoot the horse and bury it on the farm. Rabies is a risk with any horse that has progressively neurologic signs, and though rare, this case was concerning. We strongly recommended continuing to the university, but the owner was concerned about expensive care with a poor prognosis. My fears turned to the daughter. Even if the horse was ultimately euthanized, there was a risk the daughter could have been exposed if the animal tested positive for rabies. A drop of saliva while bridling the horse could easily inoculate a small cut on a finger. To my relief the owner agreed to continue to Auburn to have the horse euthanized and a post-mortem performed. On arrival the horse was still down on the trailer, tongue lolling and biting at anything that moved. We were able to heavily sedate the horse and carefully access a rear leg vein to humanely put him to sleep. All our veterinarians and technicians are vaccinated for rabies, but it was still quite frightening and risky, so we minimized the number of people involved. We performed a post-mortem exam immediately, which confirmed our biggest fear: The horse was positive for rabies. We notified the state health department, and they were able to ensure all individuals that had contact with the horse--people in the horse's barn and at the show, the referring veterinarian, and the owner and his daughter--received post-exposure hyperimmune plasma and a long series of vaccines against rabies. Case 2: Rabies vaccines: Important for horses, dogs, and even the barn cat A friend of mine has several horses and visits her farm daily with her daughter and grandson. One evening while pulling a few flakes of hay from the hayshed, the daughter felt something brush against her face and then over her arm. A flashlight revealed a small bat that was awkwardly fluttering over the hay bales. My friend chased off the barn cat who was very interested in this new, wildly moving "cat toy" and managed to kill the ailing bat with a single whack of a nearby shovel. The daughter then noticed a small scratch across her arm. They washed the wound carefully and wrapped the deceased bat in several plastic bags. Meanwhile the old one-eyed barn cat was outside happily enjoying his evening game with the grandson. My friend called me for advice. As a veterinarian I am not allowed to give medical advice, but I ensured that they had washed the scratch with water and disinfectant and suggested they pack some ice packs around the bat's packaged remains and head to the emergency room. Luckily they still had the dead bat available for rabies testing and it was delivered to the Alabama State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory first thing the next morning, where testing confirmed the bat was positive for rabies. The daughter was given rabies hyperimmune plasma and post-exposure vaccines. She told me that over the next two weeks, every time she received one of the vaccines the scratch on her arm would redden and hurt for several hours. She was convinced the bat had inoculated her with the rabies virus. The county rabies veterinary officer was notified of the positive rabies test, and we recommended that all the horses and the barn cat be revaccinated immediately and carefully observed for any possible signs of disease. Fortunately, the cat had not come in contact with the bat; an exposed cat with overdue vaccines, such as this one, would have to be euthanized or quarantined for many months. Initially my friend was reluctant to spend the money to vaccinate the old barn cat. He had lived happily on the farm for many years and, although she never really owned him, he certainly thought he owned the farm. I walked her through the facts: Rabies is endemic in America, and obviously there were rabid bats on the farm. The individual most likely to contact a sickly bat would be the old barn cat, and the cat was always around the valuable horses and was the 4-year-old grandson's playmate. The old barn cat certainly needed to be vaccinated, even as a means of protecting others potentially more valuable than he. Are all your horses, dogs and barn cats up-to-date on rabies vaccines? story source (The horse.com)