The most common cause of acute viral hepatitis in horses is serum hepatitis, also called Theiler's disease, which causes liver atrophy and necrosis. Worldwide outbreaks have been reported in conjunction with the use of equine-derived blood products, including tetanus antitoxin, botulinum antitoxin, equine plasma, Streptococcus equi antiserum and pregnant mare's serum.
Between 1.4 and 18 percent of horses receiving an equine-derived product have reported a sudden or severe hepatitis infection. A novel parvovirus dubbed an equine parvovirus-hepatitis (EqPVH) has been identified as the cause of Thieler's disease in horse serum samples the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Italy, and Germany, indicating that the parvovirus occurs worldwide.
Interestingly, EqPV-H has also been found in horses with Thieler's disease that did not receive biological equine serums.
Dr. Birthe Reinecke, postdoctoral fellow with the Institute of Experimental Virology, and a team of scientists created a study to determine if chronic EqPV-H infection is a possibility and if cross-species infection can occur. The team used 124 German horses for a five-year study as well as 318 human serum samples: 147 samples were from humans with no horse contact and 171 samples were from humans who had contact with horses for their work. They also used 494 donkey serum samples from Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, and archived samples from zebras.
Most horses used in the study were EqPV-H negative, but some has virus in their blood. The team determined that horses can be infected with the disease for up to five years, even if they show no clinical signs of the disease. About 1 percent of donkeys were positive for EqPV-H (5 of the 494 animals), meaning that the disease can also affect donkeys.
Read the full study here.
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