I must confess I missed that tidbit of information on first read. That sounds very odd. Can anyone explain how that might occur?
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Most common is cross contamination- didn’t change their gloves when working with positive control, pipette tip touched something.
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@Pennywell Bay if they ever do a journal article or feature on this, they should interview you! You have been so helpful throughout this thread in understanding this confusing, tragic, (but fascinating) drama.
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Imagining a Glanders outbreak in the U.S. keeps me on the conservative side as well.
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The U.S has not seen an outbreak of this sort of disease in a long time, so most people are unaware of devastation it can cause, as well as the required slaughter of exposed horses, not to mention the required method of carcass disposal.
As much as I feel for the folks in this situation and am glad they have their horse now, the social media outrage people have expressed about the horse being kept in quarantine is nothing compared to the outrage the USDA would be on the pointed end of, if a horse was released from quarantine and caused an outbreak.
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QUOTE=Ghazzu;n10569461]
I have to disagree. Given the magnitude of the potential risk of allowing an inapparent carrier of what is currently an exotic animal disease with zoonotic properties to go wherever his owners choose, subsequent testing is a prudent action. And I suspect the courts would agree.[/QUOTE]
Did the USDA send him home for another 30 days of strict isolation/quarantine before being retested? I am guessing not, at least nowhere near the level of how he was handled in quarantine.
The USDA released him. Obviously I don’t know with what details, but I do see a very happy girl loving her horse in a very unbiosecure way. Which I am very happy to see for both of them.
I wish Gabby and Waffles the best.
Did the USDA send him home for another 30 days of strict isolation/quarantine before being retested? I am guessing not, at least nowhere near the level of how he was handled in quarantine.
The USDA released him. Obviously I don’t know with what details, but I do see a very happy girl loving her horse in a very unbiosecure way. Which I am very happy to see for both of them.
I wish Gabby and Waffles the best.
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I was thinking the same thing. If there was any doubt whatsoever on the test results, it seems like it was pretty irresponsible to release him out into the general horse population. If they come back and test him in 30 days, and he has a bad test result, how many horses will he have interacted with in the meantime?
I’m still glad he got out of there, and I’m glad his new owners finally got to take him home. I just don’t know how they could have released him if they did not feel like the last test result was definitive.
And if the last test was definitive enough to release him, why does he need to be tested again in a month?
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Happy news!!! Congratulations and best wishes to all!!
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Because IF he has a sub-clinical carrier form, a type that is suspected (if you read the literature) but has not yet been identified , and if he tests positive again, and has not been PROPERLY quarantined at his new home, there could be serious consequences, not only for him but for every horse in and near the barn to which he has been transported.
Every trailer and every handler that has been involved in the transportation of the horse, every place all of these entities have traveled, unless they have treated the horse, trailers and handlers as actually infected with Glanders could contribute to an outbreak.
Hopefully the people involved will take this seriously and keep the horse quarantined until it is tested again. However I don’t see this happening.
Hopefully the problem was with the testing being too sensitive and not with the Glanders contagion being at such an odd sub-acute level that can be transmitted.
The Glanders problem that they assured had been taken care of before the horses arrived at the last games in Brazil is a concern.
Hopefully this will work out well, but honestly, Glanders is a very big deal and that is what the fuss is all about.
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haven’t finished reading all the updates (I was a day late then came back and saw 5 new pages …I’m glad this was the news and not the other news that would’ve spurred 5 new pages). But this. I am willing to bet something (new lot?) changed in the lab.
if I was this family I would never let the USDA touch my horse again. Lord knows what they might find and what the subsequent repercussions would be. Hard f$&@ing no from me.
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Yeah but maybe they shouldn’t release him if there is ANY second guessing…USDA wanting to “make sure” shouldn’t be on the owners. If USDA released the horse I would NEVER let them touch him again. Over my dead body. You released him … bye!!!
either be sure in the release or if you aren’t sure don’t release. I don’t understand what’s confusing about that
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It sounds like the post-release 30 day test is required, not optional. Maybe it is only required for horses that had a problem with the test in the first place?
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I got the impression they wanted to try to figure out what went wrong with the testing and why he kept coming up positive, not just make sure he still wasn’t positive. Which to me sounds reasonable if it might possibly help someone else avoid going through this.
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The Bloodhorse article on Supreme Soul’s test results (different disease) with Jamaica refusing to allow him to return are interesting.
ah, I wasn’t sure If it was required or not. It’s hard to make out if people are speculating it’s required or know it’s required. From the original update post it sounded like (and this is me assuming) the USDA wanted to do further tests to see what caused this false positive. If it’s required as a condition of release then they don’t have a choice, but if it’s optional I would hope the family would laugh and say “no thank you” at the thought of that.
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It sounds to me like maybe the single 30 day test is required (possibly because he had issues with that test?), but the USDA wanted to do additional optional tests to figure out what happened. Or that was my impression from the assorted posts.
I think another poster who had a similar experience said the 30 day test was required on that horse.
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Not quite. OP stated that the CFT came back the lowest yet (i.e. not negative) at the same time the Western Blot came back “suspect.” Then, both were tested again, and he was negative on both.
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Ah, you are right. I missed the final, final chapter where he subsequently came out negative on both tests.
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That’s how I read things as well.
I also went back and looked at the USDA website, to try and understand their procedures, etc better.
Two things were of significant interest to me…
- The way I read everything, it looks like the horse’s test results and any related reports generated by the USDA lab would have gone to the USDA VMO (Veterinary Medical Officer) dealing with this situation at LAX, and to the import agent (Horseflight?). There has been a ton of focus on Jet Pets and problems importing to LAX and with quarantine there, but I wonder if comparing and contrasting how different import agents handled pre-testing, recommendations of insurance policies covering the horse during transit (I’m assuming they sometimes recommend specific companies or types of policies), and their general performance as liaison and client advocate while the horse is in quarantine awaiting release, and the import agent is the point person dealing with the USDA and quarantine facility and passing along information to the owners might… all this seems like it could be a relevant thing to focus on when trying to explain why this situation was such a nightmare. I also wonder if the owners know who the actual veterinarians were who drew blood for the specific tests while this horse was in quarantine. One individual? Multiple? When the horse FINALLY tested negative on both tests, was it a new individual who wasn’t involved in prior testing?
Back to the import agent though. Horseflight is a well known company with a long track record in this field. Maybe they had a new inexperienced employee working on details related to this horse’s case? Who knows. Maybe someone else with experience working with one, or more than one, other import agent can compare and contrast their experience to this particular case and Horseflight? The way invoicing was apparently sent to the clients via e-mail without much line item detail, the claim from the insurance provider that nothing was covered because the horse had a “pre-existing condition,“ and the claim from the clients that they hadn’t been provided copies of the reports related to horse’s actual test results (more than 50 days into this ordeal they made this allegation in comments online)… these are all signs to me that the role of the import agent, and how well they managed administrative details for the duration of this ordeal seems to merit more focus. They get compensated for managing administrative details. I’m also really curious as to whether or not these clients have actual copies of the reports related to the horse’s pre-testing that took place in Europe prior to shipping as well. Were those reports sent from the European lab who did the testing (I think it was a lab in Germany) to Horseflight… then passed on to the client?
*** I’m not intending to be rude and say that these people who are hopefully busy visiting with Waffles today owe me or anyone else this info. They don’t! But in the follow up on this whole case, I hope they do have a chance to look at issues related to administrative details. And it’s not just a matter of looking into why test results were weird. Maybe it’s standard for agents to hang onto all paperwork until a horse is released from quarantine, and their role in the process is completed. But if the clients were responsible for paying bills prior to this point… it seems like they should have received all paperwork. It’s all a bit confusing to me.
- In the case of horses who test suspect or positive for glanders in quarantine, the USDA defines contact animals who should ALSO be held in quarantine as the horses who shipped over with that horse in the same container. Those contact horses are held for 15 days and retested, then released of negative on the CFT (all of the horses with this horse were negative and released). The USDA does not define contact animals as every single horse at the same collection center as the suspect horse immediately preceding shipment to the US. But for EIA they actually DO consider not only all horses who were in the same container, but also all equids who were at the collection center with the EIA positive horse prior to shipment as contact animals…
SOOO… I thought this was worth noting as Waffles is headed home. Glanders is a very serious disease, but it does not seem like the USDAs policy and decision to release him now and retested in 30 days poses a major risk to herd health in the US - even if his CFT comes back suspect again (hopefully not!!! But it’s been a weird case so far). It’s probably wise to keep him home, on solo turnout, and separated to a certain extent from other horses on the farm for the next 30 days though. But after reading and learning more about this disease and USDA policy… sending him home and retesting makes sense to me.
Oh well. Just a few more thoughts on this whole case.
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