Equine herpesviruses causing respiratory disease

Abstract

Extract

Madam:—I read with interest the letter Fu et al.(3 Fu, Z.F., Robinson, A.J., Dickinson, L.G. and Grimmett, J.B. 1986. Equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) infection and vaccination with an inactivated EHV-1 vaccine. N.Z. vet. J., 34: 14–15. Taylor &; Francis Online], Web of Science ®] , Google Scholar]in which they state that “Preliminary investigations on this stud have indicated that equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV1) and type 2 (EHV2) were frequently isolated and might be the initiators of the respiratory disease observed”. Additional evidence that links EHV2 (equine cytomegalovirus or slowly growing equine herpesvirus) to equine respiratory disease will be important. There is some evidence and a very high level of suspicion that recurrent respiratory disease, malaise and poor performance are associated with EHV2 but providing definite evidence has been elusive and tends to be confounded by the fact that EHV2 can be isolated from more than 70% of horses, in some populations at least, but unassociated with recognisable disease.