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Amish wary of West Nile
Friday, October 11, 2002
By DIANA ROSSETTI Repository Living section writer
MOUNT HOPE -- With a hand on his salt-and-pepper beard, Eli
Yoder watched trucks and trailers bringing horses to the Mount Hope Auction
on Wednesday. And, though the sight of so much new horseflesh captured his
attention, his mind quickly returned to an abiding concern among the Amish —
the West Nile virus.
“I think all of us are just waiting for that first hard frost so we can
feel better. Until then, we just hope our horses don’t come down with it,”
he said.
Indeed, the West Nile virus has been a main topic of conversation among
the Amish since summer brought mosquitoes carrying it. The virus can kill
both people and horses.
The virus can cause encephalitis, an infection of the brain and spinal
cord. It is spread by the bite of an infected mosquito. Mosquitos become
exposed to the virus when they feed on birds infected with it. Health
officials emphasize that the virus can not be passed from horse to human or
human to horse.
For the agrarian Amish whose religious beliefs forbid cars, tractors and
other modern conveniences, the virus places their very livelihood and
lifestyle in jeopardy. Standardbred horses pull their black buggies.
Powerfully built draft horses — Belgians and Percherons — team up to pull
wagons and farm implements through rolling fields.
Horses are a life force here, as demonstrated by the lines of Amish
buggies tied to hitching rails at the auction. Some 1,200 horses will walk
through the sale ring before it ends today.
Bob Collett is managing veterinarian at the annual auction.
“We go by what the state of Ohio tells us. What we’ve done is ask people
to vaccinate their horse. We can’t force them to do so, but certainly we’re
going to be watching. It’s a very odd disease, but it has really calmed down
in the last couple weeks as it cooled off,” he said.
That is good news, because Holmes and Wayne counties have been the site
of more than a third of the state’s identified cases of West Nile virus,
said Holmes County Agricultural Extension agent Dean Slates.
As of a week ago today, the Ohio Department of Agriculture reported 524
horses in as many as 76 Ohio counties had the virus. Holmes County had 114
cases and neighboring Wayne County had 80.
“The first thing you have to understand is that the statistics don’t
reflect the actual situation,” said Dr. Eric Shaver of the East Holmes
Veterinary Clinic in Berlin. A major portion of his practice involves
treating the working horses of the Amish. “The lag time between when we send
a blood sample to the Ohio Department of Agriculture and when we get the
results during the full-blown epidemic was three to four weeks. Initially,
it was 10 to 12 days. And just because we submit and it comes back negative
does not mean the horse does not have West Nile. It may mean that it hasn’t
had it long enough.”
Shaver and his colleague, Dr. Jarrod Webb, have treated some 135 infected
horses. Seventeen have died. Far and away, buggy horses have been hit the
hardest, Shaver said.
Vaccine shortages have not been a problem, said Dr. William Saville, the
Ohio Extension Services’ veterinarian in epidemiology and an assistant
professor at Ohio State University. “All we’ve got is mosquito control and
inoculation. Hopefully, most people will vaccinate their horse. It’s a
two-dose series, three to six weeks apart and boostered every April.”
There is no cure for the virus, though veterinarians generally use a
combination of anti-inflammatory steroids and nonsteroids and a regimen of
immune-system enhancers.
“The goal is to stimulate the immune system to clear the virus,” Shaver
explained, having just returned from a barn where the fate of a Haflinger
pony mare in foal was on the line.
“Mares in foal have been a challenge. You can’t use steroids because it
could cause abortion. But she went down today, and we have to make the
decision. Do we put the foal at risk or at least try to save the mare? She
went down in the midst of aborting her foal,” he said.
Veterinarians are not required to take a blood sample from a horse they
believe might be infected. Some veterinarians do. Shaver leaves the decision
up to the animal’s owner.
“Some of my clients have declined to have sampling done because it
doesn’t change what we’re doing. We have to start treating right away, not
wait for results. So they may say ‘Why spend the money?,’ ” he said.
Cooler weather gives veterinarians hope that a hard killing frost will
arrive sooner rather than later.
“We’re telling them (horse owners) they should be safe 10 days after
that,” he added. “If a horse was infected the day before (the frost), it
might take 10 days to incubate.”
Back at the sale, Yoder and a brother were looking for quick-stepping
Standardbreds. But a good-looking black Percheron giant could prompt him to
bid, he said.
“This is like a treasure hunt. You don’t know what will come in,” Yoder
explained. “But it’s different now because of the virus.”
You can reach Repository health writer Diana Rossetti at (330) 580-8322
or e-mail:
diana.rossetti@cantonrep.com
Repository / Scott Heckel
ABUNDANCE OF BUGGIES. Amish horses line the hitching rail at the Mount
Hope horse auction Wednesday in Holmes County.
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