January 30, 2005

Just read on the news that a horse farm about 2 miles away had one their horses test positive for equine infectious anemia. A total of 62 horses have been quarantined by the Ohio Dept of Agriculture. What concerns should I have with this and what are the symptoms. The alpacas I have here are 2 pregnant, a weanling, a yearling and a gelded. This is in North Royalton , OH .

Answer:

There is no reason to fear for your alpacas.  Equine Infectious Anemia is a blood infection spread by biting horse flies from horses to horses.  This time of year there are no horse flies to spread it, and it is infectious only to horses.  The infectious horse fly has to have a blood meal from an infected horse, that is interrupted mid-meal, then has to fly to an un-infected horse to finish its meal.  It will only fly a maximum of 150 yards to gets its meal, so for safety sake EIA horses are quarantined for a 300 yard radius.  Additionally, it is uncommon to have truly positive EIA case in Ohio , so it is possible that additional tests will find that the farm is actually not infected with Equine Infectious Anemia.  Don't get me wrong, it does happen that positive horses occur, just not very often.

I am also sending my response to Dr. David Anderson as a safety net to make sure that there is not some other information that I am unaware of that I should share with you.

Have a great day.

Tracy J Miesner, DVM