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Researcher recommends ways to decrease vesicular stomatitis incWyoming Cleaning up habitat of insects that may carry the vesicular stomatitis virus and having a vector control program like periodic spraying and using repellents for livestock can help prevent the disease, said a University of Wyoming researcher. The nation's first case of VS was confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Veterinary Services Laboratories Aug. 17 in a horse in Natrona County east of Casper. Animals suspected of the disease should be culled and reported to a veterinarian and the diagnosis confirmed, said Barbara Drolet, an adjunct professor with the Department of Veterinary Sciences in the College of Agriculture and a microbiologist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, Arthropod-Borne Animal Diseases Research Laboratory located within the college. VS is a viral disease that primarily affects horses, cattle and swine, and it occasionally affects sheep and goats, according to the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Premises with confirmed cases are quarantined until 21 days after the last lesion heals. The disease, usually non-fatal, causes blisters or ulcers in and around the mouth or feet. These blisters swell and break, leaving raw tissue so painful infected animals generally refuse to eat and drink and show signs of lameness, according to APHIS. Severe weight loss usually follows. APHIS noted the owner of the horse reported high numbers of Culicoides midges and other biting flies in the area. Drolet has spent the past three years researching the vectors of the disease. Midges lay eggs in standing water areas with high organic waste content, such as spillover areas around tanks and troughs, or in pockets of water remaining from flooding or irrigation in hoof prints and other ground depressions where cattle or horses are grazing and add to the organic content of the water. Decreasing these types of areas by controlling water spillover or by filling collection sites with dirt or sand can help reduce insect numbers. Drolet advises to avoid grazing animals at peak insect feeding hours or near insect water habitats, isolate infected animals and move animals into barns if possible. Some suggestions are not practical for large animal numbers, she said, "But it is practical for most people to decrease insect habitats and employ some type of vector control program." Producers should be watchful of the disease but not overreact if it occurs. "Report it, but don't overreact," said Drolet. "The quicker you find it and cull the animal, the less it will spread in a herd." Maps showing progression of the disease in the U.S. typically have it beginning in New Mexico or Texas in the spring and following river areas northward. Wyoming had 139 premises quarantined last year with 195 horse and 57 cattle cases reported. Drolet said the nation's index case this year in Natrona County is likely the result of overwintering of last year's virus isolate. "It's not unusual for an isolate to overwinter and come back the next year," she said On the Web: www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahss/equine/vsv/index.htm. Date: 8/23/06
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