Beating West Nile

Beating West Nile. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

I had a mosquito in my bathroom the other day. The sneaky little guy managed to escape before I could get him. Lately mosquitoes have been in the news as carriers of the West Nile virus. West Nile typically is detrimental to both humans and horses in particular. Now there is a new way of helping to fight the West Nile virus for your horses. It’s called PreveNile and according to Dr. Wendy Vaala there’s a big benefit to using it.

VAALA: Its different in that it’s the newest technology. It’s what they call a modified live chimera which really means it’s a blending of two very closely related viruses; actually yellow fever vaccine strain virus and West Nile to create a unique virus strain that provides incredible protection to the horse with just one dose.

Vaala is an equine technical services specialist for Intervet Inc., one of the worlds leading animal-health companies. Up until now you had to vaccinate your horse twice to get the same kind of protection the PreveNile provides. Some horses tend to have reactions after vaccinations.

VAALA: It’s a very low reactive vaccine so if owners have horses that tend to react to all kinds of vaccines, this one doesn’t have an adjuvant in it and that’s something that kill vaccines and the other West Nile vaccines have and that can stimulate a reaction in some horses. Local reaction and even systemic kind of general , “I don’t feel so good” kind of reaction with a fever. So the PreveNile is a much nicer vaccine that way.

There is no cure for West Nile at this point but Vaala says it’s about protection.

VAALA: The focus of a vaccine is to prevent the disease. Once they’ve had the disease or are dealing with the disease a vaccination will not make a difference. And just looking at the stats up in the northwest last year Idaho had one of the worst years, I think the numbers were like over 330 horses in Idaho were confirmed with West Nile and those were only the ones that were reported.

Vaala says it’s never too late to vaccinate.

VAALA: The perfect time if you’re going to plan ahead is in the spring before mosquito season starts and that’s when a lot of people do their initial vaccination. Unfortunately a lot of people like the - wait and see - attitude and if they don’t think it’s going to be bad this year they may not have chosen to vaccinate this spring. Unfortunately the bulk of the cases we see are late summer and in fall and so by the time you find out you’ve got West Nile in your back yard, you need to be vaccinating quickly and that’s where PreveNile would be a help with just the single dose.

For more information on PreveNile visit their website at www.prevenile.com

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.