I’m sure a major vet school has the wherewithal/ability to quarantine and treat patients with communicable diseases
[QUOTE=vxf111;9035078]
I’m sure a major vet school has the wherewithal/ability to quarantine and treat patients with communicable diseases[/QUOTE]
She is not talking about treating a communicable disease.
What IPEsq is talking about is taking the horse in for a series of nonessential lameness diagnostics. Those diagnostics are performed in communal areas using communal equipment. CSU does not have an “isolation ward” for this sort of thing, and why would they? It makes no sense, and the hospital would not risk infecting all of their patients to perform non-essential procedures.
I’ve been there many times. My older gelding has had a bone scan there. I know how this works.
Every time I check in, I must sign forms stating that my horse has not recently had a multitude of disease symptoms that might be contagious.
IPEsq’s horse should be quarantined at home and the farm should be taking proper measures:
This is from the AAEP’s coronavirus information page:
http://www.aaep.org/info/horse-health?publication=2458
Due to the highly infectious nature of the coronavirus, whenever a veterinarian suspects or confirms cases on a farm, the property manager must institute appropriate biosecurity measures to minimize disease spread. Keep in mind that horses can shed the virus in their manure for several weeks following signs of illness, and some horses shed the virus without showing any signs at all. Encourage horse handlers to use disinfectant footbaths, individual thermometers for each horse, and disposable gloves if possible. Hand-washing is also important for preventing transmission. Isolate affected animals, and handle them last using separate equipment from what’s used in the rest of the barn. Also limit traffic into and out of the barn, use veterinary-grade disinfectants to inactivate the virus. Taking proper biosecurity measures each day will help not only protect your horse from ECoV but also prevent infectious disease outbreaks of all sorts.
[QUOTE=IPEsq;9034898]
My vet booked an appointment for my horse at CSU next week. He’ll get evaluated by his sports med specialist who will look at his inguinal area, check out how his neck is doing, give him a good once-over. Then he’ll get a bone scan, and if we are still banging our heads after that, an internist will look at him and maybe take an intestinal biopsy. He still has cow patty manure but no fever. Vet thinks he would have had a fever if manure symptoms are from the ECoV. CSU is obviously aware of the test results and they are ok with him going up there without waiting 3+ weeks, though he’s not going to like it if they put him in the isolation ward. (Fingers crossed he doesn’t try to kill himself while at the hospital). As of now, we are not redoing the fecal and are treating him as a true positive. All the boarders have been notified.[/QUOTE]
If he is a “true positive” for coronavirus, the appropriate and responsible course of action is to follow the AAEP recommendations for biosecurity measures. Why hasn’t your farm instituted this?
If he is a “true positive” and the farm has not begun taking biosecurity measures, her certainly is not being “treated as a true positive” under AAEP guidelines.
http://www.aaep.org/info/horse-health?publication=2458
The bone scan requires trotting the horse for 10-15 minutes and then taking x-rays. All of this is done in common areas.
I’m admittedly not familiar with coronavirus but I’m SURE CSU is?! And they wouldn’t admit a horse with it if they didn’t have a protocol to protect other horses?! I wouldn’t trust a hospital if I didn’t think they had that sort of system in place. Do you really think CSU is going to allow a horse to come and spread a virus to other patients?!
[QUOTE=vxf111;9035139]
I’m admittedly not familiar with coronavirus but I’m SURE CSU is?! And they wouldn’t admit a horse with it if they didn’t have a protocol to protect other horses?! I wouldn’t trust a hospital if I didn’t think they had that sort of system in place. Do you really think CSU is going to allow a horse to come and spread a virus to other patients?![/QUOTE]
No, I don’t believe they will and I don’t believe they are.
I think you missed the part where the horse is not being admitted for treatment of coronavirus.
No, I do not believe CSU will knowingly allow a horse with a highly contagious disease to come in for routine imaging when the horse should be isolated at home and the farm should be exercising biosecurity procedures.
I understand that the horse is not going to CSU FOR treatment of the virus. I get it. If CSU can’t quarantine an infected horse (regardless of the reason for admission) they have no business running a vet school.
All i know is my vet called them and said he wanted to schedule my horse for various tests including the bone scan and asked if we must wait and what their protocol is due to his positive fecal result. They told him we could bring the horse at any time. Part of the rush is due to my insurance.
I’m not sure where you drew the conclusion that others at my barn are not being careful with biosecurity?
When CSU has a salmonella horse on the premises, all non-essential appointments are canceled and the horse is held in a secure wing of the barns.
I cannot imagine they would take a horse with a positive fecal for anything but emergent care, and it would go straight into the biosecure area, not to come out until it’s clean.
It took them over a day to get back to my vet on that so I don’t think it was an off the cuff decision by the hospital.
[QUOTE=IPEsq;9035429]
All i know is my vet called them and said he wanted to schedule my horse for various tests including the bone scan and asked if we must wait and what their protocol is due to his positive fecal result. They told him we could bring the horse at any time. Part of the rush is due to my insurance.
I’m not sure where you drew the conclusion that others at my barn are not being careful with biosecurity?[/QUOTE]
I drew that from your posts in this thread, but I could be wrong and invite you to share details about what those biosecurity measures are. I’m sure people riding in the dressage clinic there next weekend will be interested to know.
Is your vet on staff at CSU?
Larkspur you can rest easy now because CSU called to cancel this afternoon. Now I have to shell out another $250 to get him re-tested.
I’m not getting into any further details about my farm. Continue to gossip and clutch pearls as you wish offline.
But IPEsq, isn’t there a clinic/event coming up where you are? Has the clinician and clinic organizer been notified of the possibility of ECoV? That would be concerning on a number of levels. Especially with this nasty virus, when horses can shed the virus without being symptomatic.
We’ve certainly had other outbreaks of equine diseases that required all of us to shut the gate and stay home, so that is not really unusual. Not intending to raise alarms, but I am all for being responsible when it comes to the health of our animals, and having correct information to make good decisions.
I would hardly put that in the “clutching of pearls” category of concern.
Feel free to PM me if you prefer, of course.
[QUOTE=IPEsq;9038142]
Larkspur you can rest easy now because CSU called to cancel this afternoon. Now I have to shell out another $250 to get him re-tested. I’m not getting into any further details about my farm. Continue to gossip and clutch pearls as you wish offline.[/QUOTE]
Good news. They are doing their job and following hospital protocol, as I expected they would.
[QUOTE=IPEsq;9038142]
Larkspur you can rest easy now because CSU called to cancel this afternoon. Now I have to shell out another $250 to get him re-tested.
I’m not getting into any further details about my farm. Continue to gossip and clutch pearls as you wish offline.[/QUOTE]
Good god :eek: why would you not want him re-tested before you transported him anywhere??
I can imagine at this point, after your statements on this thread why you would rather not get into “further details”. You made the statements about your horses ill health and test results. There are people on this forum who have horses that are seen at CSU for their veterinary care and I certainly don’t think that after reading your statements on this thread that they are"gossiping" or “pearl clutching”.
You have , either through misstatement or non-comprehension of the facts of your horse’s test results, given anyone local to your barn and anyone who uses CSU a perfectly reasonable cause for concern.
I hope you are able to find out what is wrong with your horse, but there is no need to be angry with people who care enough to respond to your thread.
I should make it clear that I can’t imagine that the CSU facility was the entity that performed the test on your horse that was positive for Coronavirus and then subsequently booked your horse to come to the veterinary hospital .
They are pretty sharp and I’d be surprised if they would be that lax. Of course errors can happen. If CSU did the Coronavirus test and your horse had a positive result, than I’m glad they caught it and are having you re-test before transporting.
vxf111 The CSU equine facility is relatively small (stall wise) compared to some other big time Equine teaching and research hospitals. Small but mighty. They are usually pretty sharp and not likely to make a major error regarding this sort of Equine communicable disease.
Small or not, if a vet school admits horses with communicable disease and can’t quarantine them, they’re no vet school. I’m sure many times when my horse is at New Bolton there are horses with communicable diseases there at the same time. NB keeps them quarantined. If CSU is too small to do that, I’m sure they’d tell OP they couldn’t accommodate her horse (which may be what happened). It makes me wonder how good CSU is that their own clients seem to give them no credit for knowing basic biosecurity?!
[QUOTE=vxf111;9038871]
Small or not, if a vet school admits horses with communicable disease and can’t quarantine them, they’re no vet school. I’m sure many times when my horse is at New Bolton there are horses with communicable diseases there at the same time. NB keeps them quarantined. If CSU is too small to do that, I’m sure they’d tell OP they couldn’t accommodate her horse (which may be what happened). It makes me wonder how good CSU is that their own clients seem to give them no credit for knowing basic biosecurity?![/QUOTE]
The point is not one of CSU’s ability to quarantine a horse. They can.
The point is that the OP scheduled an appointment for a lameness work up for a horse that should be in quarantine in her home barn, given the horse’s positive ECoV state.
I sincerely hope that IPEsq’s horse recovers and will test clear, and that no further horses become ill, or shed the virus without symptoms.
I also hope that the OP will share the newest test results of her horse, so the horse community can take appropriate measures to prevent further cases.
And my point is slightly different. That we probably shouldn’t be second guessing a quality vet school’s clinical decision about how to handle a patient based on second/third hand internet information.
Maybe I was too snarky but random people have been calling my BO and my vets asking for more information about my horse’s case, my farm was outed on Facebook, etc. People scheduled to clinic should be notified of course.
CSU did not perform the test. I think I said earlier it was sent to IDEXX. It was our last ditch effort to find something before going for a bone scan. Perhaps the confusion is that while the test was out, I saw one of the vets I use regularly from CSU and discussed the case. Well, we found something but not anything that would explain the weeks of behavior. This was my regular farm vet. We expected CSU wouldn’t want us admitted so vet specifically notified them of the result when he called to schedule the studies. It took some time for them to respond, at which time they said it was ok and scheduled the studies. Then less than 24hrs before we were to take him, they changed their mind and called my regular vet to cancel.
two hail mary ideas for you if you get not answers with the next work up (not sure if already tried):
lemon juice, in case it is bladder stones
misoprostol for hind gut ulcers if you haven’t tried (i admittedly am not familiar with all of your history).
Bless you for being so thorough for this special horse. I can only imagine your frustration.
