west nile virus | Horse Racing Free Tips

Registration Open for ITBF Webinar

Registration for the International Thoroughbred Breeders’ Federation’s free webinar Jan. 21 at 1:00 p.m. (London, U.K.) is now open and available by clicking the following link. Outlining racing’s challenges, threats and opportunities, the webinar will address:

THE ROLE OF WEATHERBYS with Sir Johnny Weatherby KCVO and Simon Cooper
LATIN AMERICA – ECONOMIC CHALLENGES & BLOODSTOCK OPPORTUNITIES with John Fulton
AFRICAN HORSE SICKNESS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA with Dr. John Grewar BVSc, MSc, PhD
WEST NILE VIRUS IN EUROPE with Dr. Guillaume Fortier DVM, Dip.Pasteur Inst.,PhD., HDR Normandy Univ.
AN UPDATE ON NOCARDIOFORM PLACENTITIS IN CENTRAL KENTUCKY with Dr. Barry Ball DVM, PhD

For those who cannot attend the webinar live may register to receive the video recording link following the event.

The post Registration Open for ITBF Webinar appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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How Horses Helped With the Creation Of A COVID-19 Vaccine

People across the United States and Canada began receiving the COVID-19 vaccine this week, less than a year after the novel coronavirus that lead to a worldwide pandemic was first identified. The equine industry played a small but relevant role in this amazing scientific feat.

West Nile Virus first emerged in the United States 1999; in 2005, Fort Dodge Animal Health created a vaccine to protect horses from the mosquito-borne disease. This vaccine was the world's first DNA vaccine approved for human or animal use—and the technology used to make it became key to creating the COVID-19 vaccine.

Conventional vaccines used a killed or inactive form of a virus that teaches the body how to mount an immune response to it. DNA vaccines use small pieces of genetic material from a virus; the material itself is injected into the recipient and their cells transcribe the DNA into messenger RNA, which creates distinct proteins to jumpstart the body's immune response. This immune response will defend against the entire virus. Gene-based vaccines are faster to develop and manufacture than traditional vaccines.

Manufactured by Pfizer, the new COVID-19 vaccine is the next generation of genetic vaccines; it's a novel mRNA vaccine that directly translates into proteins once the cell incorporates it. The equine West Nile DNA vaccine was a beginning step for the creation of this vaccine, proving that nucleic acid-based vaccines were safe and effective.

Britain Remains Free From West Nile Virus

Samples from nearly 1,000 British horses revealed no presence of West Nile Virus (WNV). Transmitted by mosquitoes, West Nile Virus can cause severe neurological issues in horses; the disease has a fatality rate of about 33 percent in unvaccinated animals.

Drs. Arran Folly, Elisabeth Waller, Fiona McCracken, Lorraine McElhinney, Helen Roberts and Nicholas Johnson note that while this is good news for horse owners, they must remain vigilant in the fight against the disease. WNV is seen in many parts of the world, including the United States, southern Europe and Germany.

The researchers focused their study on southeast England, the area of Britain considered most at risk for virus introduction. The virus is most likely spread geographically by birds that have the virus; horses are a dead-end host for WNV.

Two of the 998 horses tested were positive for WNV antibodies, but upon further review, it was deemed that the antibodies were a result of vaccination for the virus within seven days of the testing.

The scientists concluded that there was no evidence of West Nile Virus transmission in England in 2019; this is in agreeance with the results of a 2019 British bird surveillance, which also found no West Nile Virus RNA in the birds.

Read the short report here.