05/14/08 Preparing for West Nile

Spring is bursting forth all over the Northwest and with it the onslaught of all sorts of flying creatures including the mosquito that brings with it the possibility for the West Nile virus. Cynthia Gutierrez is an equine technical services veterinarian for Intervet, Inc. says it's time to think about using PreveNile to vaccinate your horses. GUTIERREZ: The timing for any West Nile vaccine and in particular with PreveNile, the ideal time is to give it prior to the vector season and so the vector in this whole West Nile disease process is of course the mosquito. So you want to protect your horses during the time when the threat is going to be at the maximum and that's going to be at the height of the mosquito season. According to Gutierrez, it's important to pay attention to horses when dealing with West Nile. GUTIERREZ: Well you can have a full range of clinical signs dealing with West Nile and that's what makes it so problematic is that some horses can show just some very minor clinical signs, maybe just some sort of muscle like twitching and it's usually around the muzzle, in the neck region and if you are an astute horse owner you could pick that up but if it's a horse running out in pasture that you don't see that often, it could probably go undiagnosed very easily. While some horses can recover the worst case outcome is that the animal will need to be destroyed. Gutierrez says that PreveNile is considered a "core" vaccine. GUTIERREZ: The American Association of Equine Practitioners just released their updated vaccination guidelines and West Nile is now considered a "core" vaccination in those guidelines and what they mean by core vaccine is that every horse should get that particular vaccine. PreveNile offers the only once a year, one-dose benefit for your horse's protection. In addition Gutierrez says there are some other things you can do to help prevent West Nile. GUTIERREZ: The obvious is just to minimize their exposure to the mesquites so using fly repellent or insect repellent, trying to minimize the standing water around your place  old tires, buckets, things like that. Those can easily be breeding grounds for mosquitoes so minimizing that or eliminating those and also decreasing the light around dusk time when the mosquitoes are very active. For more information using PreveNile, visit with your equine veterinarian or online at PreveNile.com. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.