Do you vaccinate for west nile virus?

dianneS

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Does anyone use any holistic methods rather than vaccinating? I know holistic horse and goat owners and they haven't vaccinated for a single thing in 20 years and never had a problem.

I'm told by these holistic practitioners that vaccines can cause more problems than they prevent, that vaccines lower immunity and if you supplement the animals well and make sure they have a healthy and strong immune system, and do regular detoxes and such that the animals are better off than with vaccinations?

In PA rabies shots have to be done by a vet too in order for it to "count" as the animal being vaccinated, although they do sell rabies vaccine.
 

rodriguezpoultry

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The issue I see with that is that holistic practices may not be seen as "safe" by the government, and without those shots, the horses may not be allowed to board, be moved, etc.

There's also the issue of, are you willing to put other people's horses at risk? Herd immunity helps protect all members of the herd, without all animals in the herd being vaccinated, a bigger chance is taken when a new animal is introduced to the herd and may not be vaccinated. The non-vaccinated animal could bring something into the herd. If another animal happens to not be vaccinated, it would make the animal have an even greater chance of getting it and spreading it to those whose immunity is low due to age, etc.

Seems to me it's better safe than sorry when dealing with a vaccination program.
 

LauraM

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We vaccinate for WNV. It's a problem here and is now standard to vaccinate for it.
 

adoptedbyachicken

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I have not vaccinated for WN due to the high incidence of founder following the shot. However I have not looked back into it in at least 5 years now as we have had no cases anywhere near. I'm sure after all the founders it caused (and it was investigated and proven) they have done something to modify the vaccine. This was the first vaccine and done here due to the expected arrival of WN the next year. WN never showed up and the founder outfall gave the whole program a really bad rap. They rushed a vaccine to market and clearly the testing was scant.

Like all things weigh the risks and benefits. Since I see no/little risk and no/little benefit I'm willing to take no/little chance. While I agree birds in the area have been testing positive then and since one horse total has and only just late last year. I don't consider that a pattern yet, and that horse is in a much warmer wetter area than here.
 

Dakoda

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We vaccinate for WNV, EWTF, strangles and rabies in AZ. Not everyone does here, but we do. Strangles because of the farm behind us. Lots of horses coming off the track in and out of the farm. There have been horses that died due to WNV here (and humans).
 

goodhors

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adoptedbyachicken said:
I have not vaccinated for WN due to the high incidence of founder following the shot. However I have not looked back into it in at least 5 years now as we have had no cases anywhere near. I'm sure after all the founders it caused (and it was investigated and proven) they have done something to modify the vaccine. This was the first vaccine and done here due to the expected arrival of WN the next year. WN never showed up and the founder outfall gave the whole program a really bad rap. They rushed a vaccine to market and clearly the testing was scant.

.
Interesting to hear about the Founder problem with WNV. This is the first I have ever heard of it together, and I checked a lot of information when WNV shot was first introduced. There was also a lot of hype on WNV causing mare abortion, though it all proved false when checked out. Folks did a number of necropies on those aborted foals, not a WNV cause. We had a bred mare at the time, vaccinated her with the doses of WNV, no problem. Everything on the abortion stuff was hearsay, no scientific evidence, just "they said, she said" stuff. Mares DO abort foals for many reasons in the normal course of a year, WNV was not part of it.

I am going with the vaccine, which is tested and approved before release. Maybe not as fully tested as you wish, but you hope a vaccine will lessen or prevent such a deadly disease. We were ALL running scared at that time, WN was pretty deadly from all the reports and travelling west VERY FAST.

I do not believe any kind of holistic meds will prevent Rabies. You have to fight that deadly disease with a vaccine and booster shots at the proper intervals to be effectively protected. With Rabies easily hopping to other species, humans, our livestock and pets need Rabies shots for OUR protection. One of those "not worth dying for" issues to me. I vaccinate the barn cats too, the kid plays with them all the time. They pretend to bite as part of play, all she would need is a scratch to be exposed to Rabies they got from other varmints they eat or meet around the farm.
 

w c

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You betcha. Rabies, Nile, the E's, Potomoac, the whole nine yards.

No problems here with the Nile vaccine re founder.

I head a lot of gossip about it but nothing substantial. We have never had any problems.

Ft Dodge vaccine Dodge investigated several years ago (or longer? I forget).

The equine vaccine is Q105AA10. It is a killed virus. It is not a live virus. Killed viruse vaccines are generally very safe. The new vaccine, for humans, is a DNA vaccine. Pretty amazing advancement.

But I have taken all types - killed, attenuated and live virus vaccines and even they are amazingly good.

Many people think a vaccine 'gives a horse a mild case of the disease, so he becomes resistant'. That isn't how it works, but that idea causes a lot of fears around vaccines, such as what if they make a mistake, make it too strong and it makes the animal get really sick. But vaccines don't work that way.

What they do, whatever type they are, is almost act like a signal flag. They tell the body, 'hey, you had this disease already, and this is how you fight it'.

What has changed is we got better and better at finding out how little a vaccine really needs to do, to make that signal flag pop up.

Sometimes all it takes to do that is one single protein, stripped off the original virus or synthesized. Can't cause disease, but it is the signal flag the body recognizes that makes it develop the components it needs to fight off the disease, if it arrives.

Owners are being encouraged to vaccinate horses for WN as people can get the illness as well. In many people it is a mild illness, but when it gets into the nervous system...WOW. Very bad.

Blocking angiotensin II may help treat it, a lot of research is being done. The best news is that vaccines for WN may help to prevent other tropical diseases.

Current equine vet guidelines for the vaccination:

http://www.aaep.org/pdfs/AAEP_WNV_Guidelines_2005.pdf

A really good general article:

"Two vaccines are available for vaccinating equines: an inactivated WNV vaccine and a recombinant vaccine that uses canarypox virus to express WNV antigens (44,45). An inactivated vaccine is also being studied for use in humans (46). A chimeric live virus vaccine incorporating the genetic sequences for E and prM antigens into a 17-D yellow fever virus backbone has been shown to be efficacious in hamsters and is undergoing initial clinical trials in humans (46). Another chimeric vaccine incorporating WNV genetic sequences into a backbone of attenuated serotype-4 dengue virusinduced protective immunity in monkeys (44). A DNA vaccine that elicits expression of WNV E and prM antigens has been used in mice, horses, and birds (44). Vaccination of crows with Kunjin virus, a subtype of WNV, protected against WNV, and a DNA vector, which elicited expression of attenuated Kunjin virus, provided protective immunity against WNV in mice (46)."

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol11no08/05-0289b.htm

I found one comment from an owner saying her horse foundered after using Ft Dodge's WN vaccine and she had contacted them to complain.

FT Dodge responded that vaccines can't be given to horses under any kind of metabolic stress (risks for founder). Two of her horses got swollen legs after the vaccine and one foundered.

The usual adverse reactions are diarrhea, temporary swelling of legs. Even the usual adverse recactions are not common. We have had no adverse reactions.

Since infected mosquitoes can over-winter as far as upstate New York, we are taking the danger of this disease extremely seriously.

The mortality is 35% (that's very high). Of those who survive, about 40% will have residual neurological effects. Older horses have higher rates of mortality and residual effects. I've never seen one with residual effects, but as our vet said, if you did you would never want to see one again.
 

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