Horse owners: Has the news about the fast-spreading vesicular stomatitis outbreak among horses in Colorado and Texas got you spooked?
Vesicular stomatitis is a highly contagious viral disease that causes painful lesions in the mouths, muzzles, teats, and hooves of horses, pigs, deer, cattle, goats, sheep, llamas, and other animals. It can also cause flu-like symptoms in humans.
There is no vaccine or cure, and treatment is mostly to keep the animals comfortable and prevent secondary infections while the disease runs its course which takes 2-3 weeks. It’s important to observe strict quarantine until the lesions have been healed for around that same length of time.
While the current outbreak is in only two states, it could easily spread beyond those borders. If you’d like to know how to protect your horses, please join veterinarians from the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a LIVE Google+ Hangout and Q&A 6-7 p.m. Mountain Time (that’s 5 PM PT/8 PM ET) on Thursday, Aug. 14 at http://col.st/1vhtxHq.
You can submit your questions at the live event, or you can submit them early using #PagingDrRam on Twitter or by emailing cvmbs-socialmedia@colostate.edu.
Want to know more about vesicular stomatitis? Read about it here.
