Here you go the very first e-Vet Clinic Podcast -
West Nile Virus - How to prevent your horse from contracting
-OR-
The basics on what to do to prevent your horses from contracting this neurological disease that is transmitted by mosquitos. Since vaccination is not 100% effective you need to listen to this podcast to know what else to do to reduce the threat of west nile virus infection.
podcast, west nile virus
You stated in your west niles statement that horse become wabbly and can’t turn one way.
How you you know for sure it is west nile and NOT EPM. EPM has the same effects as west nile than.
Kathy,
Good observation. EPM does have similar affects as does the neurologic form of Rhino, and Rabies and Encephalitis and any other neurolgic disease in the horse. By physical examination - you can not know which one you are dealing with. Blood tests help but are also sometimes inconclusive and by the time you get the blood results back you had already better start treating the horse. EPM is an exception because there actually is a treatment for it, although not always effective and reoccurences do happen. SO how does a vet determine which one?
Experience and playing the odds, I am sorry if you do not like that answer but truly there is no other way. Diagnostic acupuncture can help assist but not every veterinarian knows acupuncture so how else are they going to determine. Well each disease has its own little differences that may help pick it out over another.
In the example I gave in the podcast - At the time West Nile first hit our area it was pretty evident that when you examined the horse it was wobbly just like in EPM; however two things which are not exclusive but did help. One it was a very very sudden onset, the owner noticed maybe the horse was off feed a little the day before and then today the horse is wobbly. The second was an interesting observation, when doing circles the horse would be OK doing them in one direction a little wobbly but able to do them, some horses looked normal; however the other direction the horse refused, was extemely wobbly or even fell down. Not the most diagnostic but it was every single horse we saw with West Nile acted this way. At that time it was easier to be sure it was West Nile because none of the horses had been exposed before so we could take blood to determine if they had been exposed. However I’ll let you know that by the second week of treating them, we started treatment with DMSO and corticosteroid and they were better before the blood results came back confirming West Nile. In the beginning we waited for confirmation we lost horses or treatment was a more longer duration.
I hope this answered your question/observation.
Dear Dr. Beatty,
In addition to DMSO, corticosteroids, a non-steroidal like Banamine, we’re using an additional class of drugs to good effect. I thought your audience might be interested in it.
My biotech company has had encouraging results treating West Nile virus encephalitis since 2003: 84% treatment success rate in people (21 of 25), 66% in horses (6 of 9), and 50% in birds (6 of 12).
We use already-existing, FDA-approved blood pressure pills that are safer than aspirin. They appear to have unusually strong anti-inflammatory properties.
Our first 8 human WNV patients were published in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 2004 (1). We haven’t published our results in horses yet.
Anybody who wants to download the WNV trial protocol can do so for free at any time by clicking on the “West Nile trial” link on our homepage at www.genomed.com.
Reference
1: Moskowitz DW, Johnson FE. The central role of angiotensin I-converting enzyme in vertebrate pathophysiology. Curr Top Med Chem. 2004;4(13):1433-54. PMID: 15379656 (For PDF file, click on paper #6 at: www.genomed.com/index.cfm?action=investor&drill=publications) — see Table 2 for human WNV patients
Sincerely,
Dave Moskowitz MD FACP
CEO, GenoMed, Inc.
Ticker symbol: GMED.PK
Thank you for the information Dr. Moskowitz. There also was available an antiserum. I know the benefit of using your treatment vs the antiserum is less cost and less reactions. So thanks for popping in and giving a bit of your info.
My podcast was a little sparce in the areas of diagnosis and treatment because its main focus was prevention of the disease, but thanks to Kathy and Dr. Moskowitz you all now have some more information.
I’ve visited your website thrice so far. Nice blog! Great job done!!
Nice blog! I have visited it for many times now. I’ll surely keep following this one. In the mean time you could visit my blog at google-ads-for–free.blogspot.com/