Discussion Paper - David Lovell

EQUINE INFLUENZA in STH EAST QLD

The disease is an upper respiratory tract infection in horses that has never before been present in Australia. Nearly all the rest of the world's horse population has equine influenza as an endemic disease and they easily manageto live with it. The disease is highly contagious, does make most horses quite sick for a short period of time, but nearly all horses recover without any long term complications. One of the problems in Australia is that all our horses are susceptible as there is no underlying immunity. This makes the disease even more difficult to control.

To date, the measure used to attempt to control the disease has solely been quarantine and containment. Theoretically this program probably has some merit but realistically, it has absolutely no chance of success. Restriction of movement of horses has some merit as an element in the principles of control but any hope of this measure being a component was lost when the decision was made to allow some movement of racehorses close to tracks and track-work and racing to resume. This principle has been even further eroded by the decision to allow brood mares to move to breeding farms. Anyperception of selective containment in a country such has ours dooms the principle to failure. For containment to have any chance, the shut down had to be absolute.

The major factor in the failure of containment as a measure is the fact that movement of people has such a potential to spread the disease. The compliance with bio-security by the general public has been magnificent and it is remarkable that such an effort has been achieved, but with the disease becoming more and more widespread, the incidences of breakdown are only going to become more and more frequent and it has no chance of succeeding, particularly as disillusionment and a perception of "favouritism" evolves.

Containment has failed and an alternative has to be immediately put in place. Containment of the disease to the existing area in South-eastQueensland is essential and even this will be impossible if instant measures are not put in place to "burn-out" the disease in the infected area. The longer the disease smoulders along in the present red zone, the less the chance of any possibility of eradication.

A process of vaccination has now commenced. The initial implementations, in my opinion, have not been structured with any real plan for an end point in mind. Already a lot of time has been wasted. The first plan of selective ring buffering around infected areas was doomed to failure. The new plan of a general buffer zone is much better but has been very hastily compiled and implementation will be difficult. Without any doubt, creation of an effective buffer zone and absolute containment within this zone is essential. All resources, effort, and vaccine available must be targeted into creating this zone. The practice of vaccinating thoroughbred racehorseswithin the red zones, although marvellous for the racing industry, shows absolutely no commitment to an over-all plan for eradication and certainly has served to ignite an enormous feeling of resentment among the rest of the horse world. This will further serve to erode the possibilities of compliance.

We must have an immediate solution. Even the present creation of the buffer zone has not produced any comprehensive strategy for eradication. We still appear to be expected to sit back, have faith, and wait for the disease to go away. This is not good enough. There is no over-all game plan and at a public meeting last week, the best that could be offered is the possibility that it will take "many" months. "What" will take many months? It is inconceivable that even at this stage; nearly six weeks into the disease, there is no plan on the table thatoffers any suggestion of an end point. Any plan, no matter what it's faults may be, has to be better than this.

ECONOMIC IMPACT It would appear that at this point, no one in authority has any idea of the catastrophic effects this disease is having on the horse industry. Every service supplier involved in the industry stopped functioning. Staffs have been put off but this is the very smallest component of the loss. Businesshas all but stopped and obviously there income has drastically reduced. Many fixed costs are still the same and will inevitably result in closures but as any small business operator knows, no business is ever static and all function with a perpetual on-going plan for improvement, development and expansion. This is the real cost to the industry as all the infrastructurethat business has put in place to allow the continued improvement ofs ervices will be lost and will take years to replace. No government"support" package can ever replace this intangible loss. Most business have risk management strategies of some sort and most are able to weather somesort of storm but there is no organisation on this earth that can continue to struggle on blindly without some sort of end point or strategy in place. This is what we need immediately. Six weeks have elapsed and still there is no hint of any end point strategy.

WHAT DO WE NEED?
We need firstly to define objectives
(1) Eradication of the disease
(2) Get the horse industry back to work
(3) Preserve the welfare of the horse

The disease to this point has not been all that severe and horse's have in general, only been mildly affected. The virus can always evolve and become stronger but more importantly, the rapid arrival of summer temperatures could well have a serious effect. Rapid containment of the disease is the only way to approach this. In general, the welfare of the horse should not be that difficult to manage.

Eradication of the disease is a contentious point and probably there is no-one who can predict the reality. Without doubt, this still has to be our goal and all decisions have to be made with this end point in mind. I believe that while the disease can be contained within the existing boundaries, we must have a very good chance of eradicating it, providing thec ontinued assertions from epidemiologists and virologists that there are NO carrier states is correct. We must progress forward on this premise.

If the disease manages to escape from the existing buffer zones or reaches Victoria, the reality probably has to be that we cannot contain it. Political planners continually have to be balancing between the enormous actual, intangible, and social costs of attempting eradication against the reality of allowing the disease to become endemic, a situation that already exists in most of the world. I believe that at this point, we must aim for eradication. At this point, I still cannot see any indication of a pro-active strategy that could result in eradication.

I believe that for eradication to be a possibility, ALL horses within the containment area have to become resistant to the disease within a very short time. There are only two ways that resistance can occur, natural infection or vaccination. The present policy of containment is only allowing the disease to smoulder along, prolonging the time for the population to be exposed and increasing the probability that some of the originally infected horses will again become susceptible.

This is lunacy. The prospect of some "natural geographic" barrier popping up and containing the disease evaporates everyday with each new infected property. It would appear that natural infection is unpredictable, may or may not occur, and the rate of spread, even with no restrictions on movement, can be variable. I believe the mooted prospect of "opening the gates and allow the disease to go" to be too unpredictable to give us a real chance of eradication. The welfare implications alone make this approach impossible.

How can any horse event be scheduled without some assurance to owners that their horse is not likely to become infected if they attend and how can any sense of responsibility sanction encouragement of possibly infected horses to exercise. I believe rapid and complete vaccination to be the only way to offer a realistic chance of achieving the goal.

The problems are endless and it is a logistic nightmare but it is the only way. The major problem is identification of horses. There is no way that we can achieve eradication if we cannot identify horses. At this point, no one has any idea of how many horses are in the region and what their location is.Obtaining this information is essential to success. We have to be able to identify horses and need to know the status of every horse. This is a mammoth task but not impossible, and if we don't attempt to get this reasonably accurately, then we may as well give up. I realise statistically there are models for populations that allow generalisation but we do not have time to debate this and our initial plan has to aim for "perfection".

Every property in the containment area has to be identified and the presence or absence of horses, and how many, determined. A mammoth task but not impossible. Shire councils have every property identified, each has to be assessed and horses identified. Horses have to be identified. Micro-chips are the only way. Ultimately each horse will have to have a "passport". This provides a visual and electronic identification and allows recording of immune status. Development of individual passports for each horse will be to time consuming initially. Each horse has to be micro-chipped and a basic ID form developed to be converted into a passport as time evolves. This is not too difficult and must be incorporated with the vaccination program.

The major time consumer in the identification process is filling out the forms and the document of description. We must develop paperwork that can be distributed to the owners prior to the arrival of the vaccination team and all the team has to do is check the forms and sign off on it. A more detailed and accurate document of description will be produced at a subsequent encounter. The primary method of ID initially will have to be by microchip.

Vaccination is the only method of rapidly being able to determine the immune status of the population. ALL horses must be vaccinated. Determining which horses have been naturally infected will be to time consuming. Vaccination should initially target three groups
(1) Horses in the buffer zone. This is essential and immediate. The zones must be secured and the red zone isolated. This is the responsibility of theDPI and the present program is in place. They must secure the zone; define a"sentinel area outside the zone to ensure the disease is not escaping by peripheral radiation as has been happening at the moment.

I then believe the department should strategically target vaccinate areas in the green zone that are most likely to incur a "human" breakdown in lockdown. This would mean the more heavily populations adjacent to the red zone and major provincial centre in the state. Even the most robust lockdown and quarantine of the south east red zone will fail because of human error in direct proportion to the time taken for eradication to be achieved.

(2) Non-Infected horses in the red zone. This group is rapidly declining but an analysis of the area made and a strategic program developed to vaccinate from outside in towards the infected areas. The critical element in achieving eradication has to be elimination of the production of circulating virus. Every non infected horse that is prevented from becoming infected has to significantly reduce the amount of virus available. The thoroughbred industry vaccination of their horses has already been a major contribution towards this phase of the program

(3) Infected horses. This could be contentious as the argument can be made that they are already immune. It is quite possible that the virologists and epidemiologists may feel confident to identify and certify these horses as being "immune" but if there is any doubt, then blanket vaccination quickly eliminates this. Whichever way, the horses have to be identified. Serology to determine immune status will be to time consuming. The issue would be possible increased "vaccination" reactions if horses are already immune.This needs to be evaluated but may mean these horses must receive canary poxvaccine.

The type and availability of vaccine is critical. The present canary poxvaccine is probably ideal. Whether supply of enough vaccine is possible would be questionable. More so, the licensing requirements essential for importation of a live virus and the strict quality control necessary for the maintenance of the "cold trail" probably suggest that the killed vaccine option would be better for this vaccination of the general population as it should speed up and simplify the process.

Whatever, decisions need to b emade immediately and supplies procured.

PULLING IT TOGETHER The logistics of this program are enormous. The department continues with their buffer zone program and absorbs the costs. The thoroughbred industry ensures all their horses are identified andv accinated. They will continue to use live vaccine. The government has to develop and resource teams to access the council rate notice files and identify and quantify all the horses in the region. Private practice has to carry out the work in the containment area. I believe owners should bear a large proportion of the cost for their own horses, and that they would gladly comply if an end was in sight. Microchips and vaccine and paperwork have to be available. Owners then contact their veterinarians to arrange vaccination and identification.

I believe this process can be relatively quick if owners comply and I have no doubt they will. There is a tremendous public interest in resolution of this problem.The veterinary practice will organise a vaccination protocol. Owners will collect their paper work from the veterinarian in advance and complete all the forms. Vaccination days will be declared, probably on weekends, where owners must be at home and have their horses available and ready. The veterinary teams will arrive, microchip and vaccinate the horses and sign off on the paperwork which they will then forward to a central administration for input.

Owners that do not have their horses ready or hold up the process will be missed and have to be caught up with at a later date when possible and at a markedly increased cost. The incentive for compliance is easy. Everyone wants an end point and this means removal of containment and restrictions. Once the buffer zone is declared and the infected area vaccinated "enough", owners will be permitted to move their horses, BY PERMIT ONLY".

Permits will be issued by the department and movement policed by officers. Ideally they all will have a scanner but owners must carry their copy of the temporary passports at all times. Admittance to any events that are arranged can only be on productionof a valid waybill, passport, and hopefully successful microchip scan. I am sure some system of self production of travel permits can be electronically devised to minimise staff and maximise efficiency in the permits section but there must be a well resourced inspection unit developed to spot checkhorses travelling and penalties for non compliance enormous.

The foregoing is the essence of a plan that I believe offers a rapid resolution of the present disastrous situation that is economicallycrippling and socially destroying our industry. I believe the program offers a very real chance of successful eradication, and if not, it cannot be any worse than the present "No Program" and allows some realistic relief for thehorse industry. I believe the program is comprehensive and all inclusive.

No one has yet told us how racing is going to resume if the rest of the population of horses is still susceptible! There are many, many other issues that need to be resolved, particularly relating to maintenance of the integrity of the buffer zone. Determination of a status of eradication needs to be determined by others but surely thePCR testing reduces the problems associated with vaccination.

Time is of the essence and so I would like to circulate this document as a template for others to evaluate and critique so that we can identify theother major problems and hopefully allow a definitive document to evolve.

David Lovell
Sept 30th 2007-09-30