EI in Armidale

[Talaki]

My belief they will keep EI under control has now disappeared as a horse has been confirmed with EI on the other side of Armidale!!! Over 60 km from the nearest hotspot!!!

Furthermore apparently the horse was confirmed positive on Friday and the vets have only been advised today and the DPI website has not been updated yet nor have horsey people around Armidale been notified (I only know because I was talking to our vet!)

[rick]

bugger.
hopefully they can vaccinate around it.
How far out of town ?

[Talaki]

A few minutes the other side of town. Less than 20km away by road!

[Talaki]

Finally on the local radio news this morning was mention that Armidale had EI! Still can't find anything on the DPI site or anywhere else! Why the poor response I ask?

[rick]

It was on the DPI site this morning, and the TV news last night apparently (Prime ? we can't get terrestrial TV) The DPI is linking it to Narrabri Draft, although it's four weeks since then which blows the incubation time right out of the water. Maybe people not reporting ?

Luckily Armidale is one of the spots earmarked for immediate vaccination once the vaccine lands to stop the spread.

"The buffer zones will be at least 10 km wide. There will be ‘doughnut’ buffer zones around the isolated Restricted Areas at Parkes, Dubbo, Tamworth, Armidale, Berry, Wauchope, Nowendoc and Mudgee."
from here http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/livestock/horse/influenza/information/daily-updates/25-september-2007

[Talaki]

Hmmm... perhaps that means we will be getting vaccines here! I am happy we live on the other side of town!

I do wonder though as all our horses have a virus (not EI but the original virus why we got the EI swab) whether the vaccine will make them sicker??? They all appear to be recovering now though...

[Zephyr]

They wont vaccinate sick horses

[Judi Ruffo]

or under 4 months old

[Zephyr]

True, because maternal antibodies interfere with the vaccine and dont allow foals to form antibodies, so its a waste of vaccine. Same reason we dont vaccinate puppies before 6 weeks.

[Judi Ruffo]

heres's a question, we have all these horses in warrick with antibodies, so why are we not "making" live vaccine or is it a tad more complicated than my simple mind can deal with?????

[rick]

the vaccine itself is scary.
It's the first time a 'live' vaccine has ever been admitted into the country, and only vets and approved people will be handling it as it is derived from a canary flu virus and there is a remote chance it could jump the species barrier back to birds if miss-handled.