I think that you should talk to an equine veterinarian who is familiar with this illness before making a decision.
I am not 100% sure the person you're talking about should be uninvited from your show. You need to talk to a vet.
I will answer based on what I learned at a recent EVH-1 seminar just to get people in motion, but you should discuss your prevention and quarantine methods with your veterinarian.
I am not sure that unless the horses she has came into direct contact with the horses that were sick, they need to be kept away from your local horses. You need to talk to a vet.
It is not really clear WHY the Neurological form develops. But it is from the SAME VIRUS (earlier reports to the contrary are wrong). One amino acid may be altered in the virus when it goes to the neuro form, but overall it's not yet clear why the neuro form occurs or why when it does, why it makes a beeline to nerve cells. But once they understand that, they can develop a vaccine.
If her presence would cause a lot of anxiety and complaints in the membership, that is one thing, that's basically, well, an organizational matter. I'd suggest that taking a poll among your members would help you get a feel for how the GROUP is going to react. In general, horse people don't know much about EVH-1 or its Neuro form, except that they are scared of it. I think the decision will HAVE TO BE what the membership is comfortable with. How your organization wants to handle it, what your members demand, may have very little to do with the actual nature of this disease or whatprecautions really SHOULD be made.
But risking tearing apart a fledgling organization by doing something that scares people half to death is probably unwise, whether their fears come out of knowledge of the disease or not.
The nature of the illness and the precautions recommended by vets, though, that is something else.
Someone said there is no test or vaccine for this illness. Some urged extreme caution and others urged not worrying about it.
Horses CAN be tested for virus activity, actually, it's just that this is not usually done unless symptoms develop.
And there IS treatment for the neurological form. IF anti-inflammatory medication is started early enough, it really does help reduce the neurological form.
At the seminar, they said the neurological form does not attack neurological tissues directly, it creates little mini-infarcts disrupting the circulation to the cells - that is why anti inflammatories are so critical in the treatment.
And vets ARE saying, that while there is no guarantee, it DOES appear that the vaccine for EVH-1 CAN lessen the seriousness of the Neurological form. It appears to lessen the 'viremia' of the neurological form. This was stated in the seminar I attended given by Joe Bertone.
If the vaccine has even a slight chance of reducing the severity of the neuro form it is very well worth it, and it appears to be more than a slight chance.
AGAIN...no guarantees that the EVH-1 vaccine will ALWAYS, ENTIRELY prevent the neuro form of EVH-1, but from what I know about viruses this does in fact, make sense that the vaccine could lessen the viremia of the virus. Viremia is the virus activating. The more activation, the more severe the disease.
BUT....virtually ALL horses carry this virus in their tissues. Yup. That is what he said.
In other words the question is not whether horses are carriers or not. Virtually all are.
Virtually all horses have had the respiratory form and will always carry the virus in their tissues. The question is how to keep it from activating. Stress appears to be a key - but that word 'stress', that means different things to different people. I think though, that longer transports are an example of the kind of stress he means. These trips stress the respiratory system.
Bertone also stressed that once a horse has gotten EVH-1 (even the neuro form), once he is recovered, he is no more or less infecttious than any other horse. In other words, the usual ideas about spreading viral disease don't quite work with EVH-1.
Neither panic nor a casual reaction really is best. Bertone's point was that we have to COMPLETELY CHANGE our thinking about infectious diseases and our horses.
WHY?
He said we need to isolate new horses that come into our barn for 3 weeks...YUP - not just during these outbreaks but always. Always(but check it out, most stables have no place or method to isolate horses).
And that means the horses don't graze on the same ground, people change clothes and boots (one method is to have a different set of boots and coveralls for handling the new horse).
AND that at shows, we should wash our hands BEFORE AND AFTER HANDLING EVERY HORSE. NOTHING FANCY IS NEEDED - SOAP AND WATER WILL DO(those hand sanitizers are probably more convenient).
AND....if we put a horse in a show stall, it has been several days since the last horse was in it and all the bedding used by the old horse, to scraping the floor, has been removed(there were several comments from the audience that the shows they attend just don't remove bedding or time when stalls were used). There is no chemical or solution you can wash down a show stall with that will get into all the crevices and corners, time best kills the virus.
The EVH-1 virus, once it gets outside its host, is very, very fragile. It dies quickly. It does not persist in soil like some other infectious agents. BUT horses CAN pass it to each other and people an pass it from horse to horse.
HE was very definite about that - that PEOPLE can and do, spread this disease from horse to horse, so likely all those people that visit the show barn and go down the line petting horse after horse, are spreading diseases, if not EVH-1, then some other diseases. People are starting to put hand sanitizer up by each stall, and 'do not pet' signs. But I think some horse people will never change thei habits on this particular front!
