Herpes Quarantine Partially Lifted in Kentucky

Barn 3 at The Thoroughbred Center in Lexington was released from an equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) quarantine on Mar. 7 after the Kentucky State Veterinarian's office confirmed that samples collected from each horse in that stable came back negative.

According to a news release from the Equine Disease Communication Center (EDCC), which is run by the American Association of Equine Practitioners, “in addition to the testing that has been completed, the horses have been monitored daily and our findings support that it has been greater than 14 days since any horse in the barn was last exposed to a clinical case.”

However, the release continued, “Barn 30 remains under quarantine. Officials are continuing daily monitoring. There have been no fevers or other symptoms in the group, and the horses in Barn 30 are scheduled to be sampled (swabs and whole blood)” for testing later this week.

Earlier this week, Los Alamitos Race Course, where both Quarter Horses and Thoroughbreds are currently stabled, was released on Monday from an Equine Herpesvirus Myeloencephalopathy quarantine that the California Department of Food and Agriculture had imposed on Feb. 21.

And on Mar. 1, both Turf Paradise in Arizona and Turfway Park in Kentucky had similar EHV-1 quarantines lifted by their respective state agencies, according to the EDCC.

Since January, herpes-related quarantines have also been imposed and subsequently released at Belmont Park in New York, Laurel Park in Maryland, and Portland Meadows in Oregon.

Last month, Dr. Nathaniel A. White II, DVM, a chair of the AAEP's National Equine Health Plan Task Force, told TDN that what appears to be a recent spike in equine herpes outbreaks should not be mistaken for a nationwide pandemic.

Rather, White said, the apparent widespread spate of herpes reportings could just be a function of the EDCC making disease information more readily accessible to the media and the general public. Prior to the advent of the EDCC's alert system in 2016, White noted, there had been no centralized means of disseminating outbreak news.