Courses / 09.03.2021
Guillaume Fortier: “The best treatment is a very early diagnosis”
Gallop day. – The rhinopneumonia epidemic from Spain has been a major concern for several days. What is the current situation ?
Guillaume Fortier. – The strain which prevails is a priori almost normal. We should have confirmation of that in the next few hours. We will then have the full genomic name, the mapping of the virus. Labéo works closely with the Irish Equine Center.
In what context did the epidemic develop?
Sport horses have the particularity of traveling for a long time. And very often. For very high level jumping horses, this is almost commonplace. This workforce does not have at all the same vaccination coverage as our thoroughbreds or our trotters. In addition, as was noted by the Respe veterinarian who traveled there, they are in barnums containing several hundred horses. That never happens in the racing world. This context is favorable to an epidemic in the process of re-triggering, with the gravity that we know. In a stud farm, when there is a neurological form, all the staff are mobilized around this single clinical case. In Spain, it started in a relatively standard form. Neurological cases then followed one another and all the staff rallied around these valuable sport horses.
Can we have particular fears for racehorses?
The code is simple: if a horse is tested unvaccinated at a racetrack, it is released. When a thoroughbred has gout on his nose, when he is suspicious, with temperature, he is isolated.
For sport horses, the situation is quite different. There are no vaccine obligations and when there are no obligations … In Valencia, the risks have been added, even multiplied, with a high concentration of horses that come from extremely different countries and whose status vaccination is not made compulsory. It is not malicious, but the handling of the first cases was certainly not up to par. We are unfortunately facing a spectacular and dramatic epidemic, in a pre-Olympic year. Perhaps there will be an awareness of the Federations after this event. I have the impression that the discourse is revolving around solutions to prevent this from happening again one day.
Are vaccinated horses protected?
Vaccinated equines are always better protected. As soon as you have a certain percentage of vaccinated horses, you reduce the risk of onset and reactivation of the disease by two, then by three…. It is a planetary and absolute truth. It should be remembered that the rhinopneumonia vaccine, whether it is EHV1 or EHV4, is effective between 70% and 74% of cases, according to the publications. It’s already huge: 30 sick horses, instead of 100 at the start, it’s not the same thing at all. The more cases there are, the more likely it is that the clinical neurological form will appear. The fewer cases of standard rhinopneumonia you have, the lower your risk of nerve-type rhinopneumonia. It is also an absolute truth.
What are the special precautions to be taken with racehorses, for breeders and trainers?
You have to be extremely vigilant and more than ever watch the horses, take the temperature. At the slightest alert, the horse must be isolated. It is important to ensure that humans do not touch a suspicious horse when going to see another. In Spain, people would touch the sneezing horses, then touch the one next to them. While the virus is very transmissible. When a horse sneezes on a veterinarian, he must take off his disposable gown, as the virus is still present on the gown after two hours. So it can go very, very quickly. Following the first signs of the disease, it is also necessary to proceed to an immediate testing, because the horse always has the virus at the end of the nose. When a horse has a neurological form, it hardly has any virus at the end of the nose: it is already too late. A very, very early diagnosis is the best treatment.
In addition, Labéo works in the service of the fight against Covid. How exactly is it going?
Last April, we opened a unit in Saint-Contest (Calvados). We were effectively using the bio-security laboratory of our research platform to do Covid-19 tests. Given the peak of activity, two new units, in Saint-Lô and Alençon, were put to work. Covid-19 activity has been very strong, at more than 1,500 tests per day since almost September. It has dropped a little bit, via the testing protocols that have been put in place. We kept Saint-Lô and Alençon, which freed up the Caen research platform. We were thus able to continue our pure equine activities and prepare for the breeding season. Technologically, as we have a great deal of engineering in molecular biology and virology for horses, we very quickly screened for Covid-19 variants and we even do complete sequencing of Covid-19. Our equine activity has therefore also served the human species …
What happened to the equine activity within Labéo?
We had maintained all breeding season activity. The breeders and veterinarians have shown themselves to be hyper-conscientious. Partnering with very understanding people has proven to be a win-win. We had modified analysis protocols under the leadership of Loïc Malivet, who was responsible for the equine sector at the national level. New protocols, in principle linked to export but applied to routine service, have been proposed. Overall everyone was happy. We are in the middle of the breeding season but especially in the middle of rhinopneumonia with some concerns. This happens just after the EHV4 outbreak in Pau and the flu outbreaks that we have at various training centers. The activity is quite dense.
A web-conference on rhinopneumonia
Faced with the questions raised by rhinopneumonia, Digital Horse Week has decided to organize a web-conference on the subject: “Rhinopneumonia: how to protect my horse and my stable?”, Friday March 12 from 8 pm. Anne Couroucé, in Valence for a week, president of the scientific and technical council and veterinarian organizer for the 2014 YWAM, Camille Vercken, agricultural engineer, president and founder of Equiways, as well as Hugues Calvin, agricultural engineer and director of the National Federation of Advice from horses, will participate in this conference to be followed on www.sdcheval.fr.
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