United Kingdom: Equip Artervac (vaccine) Supply – Further Delay

On 10th July 2023 Zoetis updated EIDS that the anticipated resupply of a new batch of Equip Artervac equine arteritis virus (EAV) vaccine, which had been due by the end of September 2023, had regrettably been delayed until December 2023.

Stallion owners and their veterinary surgeons should be reminded that for horses that were blood sampled at the time of likely peak antibody response a few weeks after their last booster dose, with samples submitted for archiving and subsequent testing at Rossdales Laboratories (see news article in Q1 2023 Equine Surveillance Report), there is no requirement for further blood samples to be taken at the time that the lapsing six month booster comes due but there will be at the time that the next dose is administered when Equip Artervac becomes available.

These paired samples will be tested in parallel by virus neutralisation test to demonstrate absence of seroconversion (fourfold or greater rise in antibody levels) between samples which, if present, would be consistent with response to EAV infection in the absence of vaccination.

Importantly, stallions that cannot now comply with the blood testing protocol because they were not sampled only a few weeks after their last vaccine dose, will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis, but they should be blood sampled at the time the next dose is administered and their serological status determined (e.g they may have become seronegative in the intervening period, thereby confirming absence of EAV infection based on this single sample).

Source (direct quote): Equine Quarterly Disease Surveillance Report

Equine Infectious Disease Surveillance (EIDS) is generously funded by the UK’s Thoroughbred industry and is based at Cambridge University.
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