Once again the African horse sickness in Thailand     

On April 5th, there was a story on this blog about African horse sickness, which had broken out in several provinces of Thailand. You can read that article again at  www.thailandblog.nl/nieuws-uit-thailand/afrikaanse-paardenpest-in-thailand.

A loyal blog reader, Monique Erkelens, who now lives in Surabaya, but is devoted to Thailand, sent an email in response to our article to draw more attention to this disaster, which has caused the African horse sickness in Thailand.

She is friends with Dr. Nopadol Saropala, a gynecologist who works in Bangkok and manages the district of Pak Chong. He is a great horse lover and regularly goes to Khao Yai on weekends to visit his riding school and ride horses. This riding school is also open to the public, so children and adults can take (horse) riding lessons, but also come to feed the horses, for example. Be sure to check out the wonderful Farm Mor Por website (www.farmmorpor.com) and plan a visit as soon as possible.

He is a fan of Friesian horses, among other things, and has therefore bought a large number in the Netherlands. He had about 60 horses in total (including other breeds), but 17 of them have now succumbed to the African virus.

Through Monique I contacted Dr. Norapol and he told me in detail how the catastrophe started and how it developed further. This is his story:

It seemed like revenge

March 25 2020 One fine morning my manager called me to say that our Thai mare Pao developed acute shortness of breath without any prior warning, collapsed and died. The manager had informed the vet, but instead of doing the post mortem, she simply asked that the horse be buried.

I thought that was an unusual practice and called her for an explanation. She told me that about 30 horses had died in the same way that morning. They came from several farms in the area. My vet suspected a persistent contagious disease and wouldn't come to my farm for fear of transmitting more germs. The relevant government agency was alerted and a team of veterinarians came to examine and blood test the sick and dying animals.

March 27 2020 That body concerned the Department of Livestock and Development (DLD), whose confirmation came from the outbreak of a highly contagious viral disease, the African horse sickness (APP), in English the African Horse Sickness Disease (AHS). As the name suggests, AHS is typically only found in Africa. However, there have been outbreaks elsewhere in the past. In 1987, a major outbreak in Spain resulted in the deaths of over a thousand horses. All because of the 10 infected zebras imported from Africa. It looks like history is about to repeat itself, but this time it's in Thailand. The DLD ordered a lockdown/stay at home policy for all horses within a 50 km radius of the affected areas, transport of horses was banned.

The first outbreak occurred in Pakchong district of Nakhon Ratchasima province. I'm sure several horse animals were transported to other areas anyway, compounding the problem. Within a few weeks, the disease has spread to 6 other provinces.

It seemed like revenge. Horses dropped like flies. The outbreak was unprecedented with more than 300 deaths in three weeks.

April 8, 2020 We (the private horse owners) demanded urgent action and a solution from the government. As a result, a “task force” was formed with the Director General of the DLD as chairman to address the problem.

April 10, 2020 First meeting of the task force, consisting of 33 participants, including renowned veterinarians and officials from related government agencies. In fact, the vets had sometimes already been working to stop the spread of the disease.

The tasks set for themselves were:

1. Prevention of more infection and death of horses.

From the beginning, owners frantically installed a barrier in the form of a tightly woven net to prevent the blood-seeking mosquitoes, which are the main vector, from getting to the horses. These little creatures can fly up to 100 km with a little tailwind. Zebras are the natural host for the virus. Once infected, the animal can carry the virus for 40-50 days. to delete. While the virus has hardly any adverse effect on zebras, it is always deadly for horses.

2. Vaccination

After some deliberation among the veterinarians, the conclusion was to vaccinate all non-infected horses in the risk areas.

Although the vaccine carries a risk of death of 1 in 1000 horses, the benefit far outweighs the risk. The alternative of not vaccinating could end up wiping out the entire horse population in this country.

3. The hunt for the culprit

There was never any doubt about the cause of the outbreak of AHS, the disease that until now did not exist in the Kingdom of Thailand. AHS came with infected imported zebras. In recent years, hundreds of zebras have been imported for zoos or to be re-exported to China.

During our initial investigation, we were shocked and completely baffled when we learned that there is no legal requirement that zebras imported from abroad be blood tested and not quarantined. The trader/owner obviously uses this loophole to simply bring entire herds of zebras here.

The DLD official told me they have absolutely no jurisdiction over imported zebras. On the other hand, the Dept of National Park, Wild Life and Plant Conservation, which is responsible for issuing the import license of the animals, says it is only their job to control the number and type of animals imported. They don't even check if there is a health certificate of the animals.

Our law is full of … yes, it is full of flaws and urgently needs to be changed.

April 17, 2020 The vaccine has arrived, many thanks to Mr. Pongthep from Maxwin Ltd., who purchased the vaccine and donated it to the DVD. An army of veterinarians with assistants is now working to vaccinate all 4000 horses that are at risk.

The first group of horses to be vaccinated did not come from the risk area, but concerned the 560 horses of the Red Cross in Petchaburi. They deserve preferential treatment because they produce snakebite and rabies antibodies for humans.

Finally

Let's pray and hope that with the vaccination project the disease can be banished from our country. Let's also hope that the real culprits of this drama will be brought to justice.

Horse owners and the public are understandably frustrated with the slow progress of things. Bureaucracy is like a baby trying to take its first steps. Every step is full of concern and caution. Each step seems to take forever!

I'd like to end this by reminding us all that this goes way beyond an outbreak of African horse sickness. This is all about the wildlife trade in Thailand. Not only must we eradicate APP in Thailand, we must also eradicate the wildlife trade.

Thanks for posting on Thailandblog!

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