Horrific horse virus spreading like crazy across Central Texas
by: Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews.com
Friday, August 15, 2014
A strange disease that leaves horses with raw tongues, oral blisters, skin lesions and other horrific symptoms is spreading throughout Central Texas and Colorado, according to new reports. The spread of vesicular stomatitis (VS), a highly-contagious disease that usually requires quarantines in order to be mitigated, has resulted in the cancellation of several horse shows, as well as major economic losses for some ranchers.
An announcement issued by the Texas Animal Health Commission on July 25 explains that outbreaks of VS have occurred in at least 21 different locations in eight Texas counties, including in Austin’s Travis County. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) added around the same time that at least 27 equines were affected, including 22 in Texas and five in Colorado.
Similar to foot and mouth disease, VS typically shows clinical signs that include major swelling; shedding of skin on the muzzle, tongue, teats and above the hooves; and severely painful oral blisters and sores. In severe cases, otherwise healthy animals will simply stop eating, sometimes for days at a time, requiring their owners to put them under quarantine for at least three weeks while they recover so as not to infect other animals.
“It transmits so easily,” stated Si Jarboe, a horse trainer from Central Texas, to KEYE-TV News, noting that she initially thought little of the disease. “The flies [from] what I understand are the transmitter.”
Vesicular stomatitis leaves animals ‘miserable,’ say experts
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