CAIRO: Horse owners and traders were in for a tough month in July as equine influenza hit Egypt, stalling their businesses and occasionally leaving a few horses dead.
Equine influenza (EI) is an acute, highly contagious, viral disease which can cause rapid outbreaks of respiratory diseases in horses and other equine species.
There are two main types of EI: Equine-1 (H7N7) affects horses’ heart muscles, while the second, Equine-2 (H3N8), is more severe.
“We stopped horses from going in and out for three weeks. This has gravely affected our business. [Maintaining a horse] costs from LE 1,000 to LE 2,000 per week, Adam Wafi, owner of Prestigue Horses farm, told Daily News Egypt.
Wafi owns more than 20 horses; most of them are now infected with the virus.
“We knew it was coming to Egypt after it left half of the horse population in Australia dead, so we took our precautions, Wafi said. “Other stables were surprised and they had a serious problem. The majority of stables in Sakkara have temporarily stopped their renting businesses.
Wafi said that medicine wasn’t available on a regular basis or was too expensive when found at certain pharmacies. There were very few doctors to consult, he added.
A worker at the King Farouk horse farm told Daily News Egypt the virus hit them in the season’s primetime, as tourists, especially Arabs, constitute the majority of their customers.
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), EI is an airborne disease spread via aerosolized respiratory secretions and fomites, including contaminated inorganic objects and people moving between infected and uninfected horses.
The most common source of infection and outbreak, however, is the introduction of a new animal into the herd.
Its clinical signs include fever, coughing, intense nasal discharge, depression, muscle soreness, anorexia, and enlarged regional lymph nodes. Colic (abdominal pain) and edema of the legs and scrotum have also been observed with influenza infection.
“Equine flu has been around for a long time but the problem started to emerge and spread viciously since the first week of July, Maryanne, a horse farm owner told Daily News Egypt.
“The virus came in the middle of the summer racing season. Stables in Semooha Club had a very serious problem because of the possibility of infection was very high, as there was a big rally for horses participating in the races, Maryanne said.
“Jumping horses as well as other kinds were brought back to Cairo, she added.
Maryanne said symptoms don’t appear on horses for four or five days. The first sign is fever that goes as high as 41 degrees. It leads to runny noses that spread mucus over hair, shoes and clothes; all carriers of the disease.
Humans do not get infected with equine influenza. However, humans can physically carry the virus on their skin, hair, clothing and shoes, and can therefore transfer the virus to other horses.
“We work with certain clothes and after we finish, we change all our clothes and take hot showers to prevent any spreading of the virus, Maryanne said.
The Equine-1 virus was first isolated in Czechoslovakia in 1956 while H3N8 was first isolated in Miami in 1963.
Farm owners say the problem has declined now, but stables in the El-Haram area often put horses with signs of improvement back to work, ignoring veterinarian recommendations to rest the horses from three to four weeks.
Horse owners also insisted that the government didn’t offer much help, if any at all, and that they had to consult their own private vets.
“The authorities did nothing, we knew about the disease from each other and the news flew from stable to stable. We also sent emails to each other about the virus, Maryanne said.
“We managed to control the situation and had our horses vaccinated, said Ahmed Hamed, head of El-Zahraa Stud farm, an affiliate of the Egyptian Agricultural Association.
“It is the second time the virus hit us after 1990, Hamed said. “Fortunately, the virus hit us in the summer so we were able to manage, he added
However, Hamed insists the virus didn’t largely affect the horse trading business, despite limiting the movement of the horses.
“As powerful as horses are, they are very sensitive and a case of flu or a stomachache can kill them, Diaa El-Din Salman, an expert in virology told Daily News Egypt
Salman stressed that, given the nature of the viruses, horses should remain monitored until the virus is under control, “because viruses hit a lot of species. There is a chance the virus gets mixed with other types and exchanges genetic materials; in this case the re-assortment in the virus can be pathogenic, which can cause diseases and create a new strain or genotype of the virus, or it is non-pathogenic, which is harmless.
