Kim Taylor owns Silverwood Arabians, a Fredericton facility that offers equine-assisted therapy and learning programs. She has 18 horses, from foals to elderly horses. All her horses are healthy and vaccinated, but she’s taking the report of equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) seriously. “There’s no horses coming in or out. People coming in, we’ve asked where they’ve been, if they’ve been in a horse facility. We ask that they change all of their clothing, footwear. Everything’s clean coming into the farm,” she said. New Brunswick issued a provincial advisory about the virus after a potential exposure during a horse show in Sussex last week. A horse at the show was in a boarding facility with a horse that tested positive for the virus. Taylor’s horses were not at the show. But that isn’t preventing her from being careful. “Any virus that goes around is a concern to any horse facility because they are contagious and they can spread really, really quickly,” she said. And she’s not the only one — the province’s Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr. Nicole Wanamaker, is asking horse owners to take precautions. “Monitoring their horse, using good biosecurity practices on their farms. Any sick horses are isolated, calling their veterinarian to seek veterinary advice, talking to veterinarians and seeing what they can do to help protect their horse’s health,” she said. The virus cannot pass from horses to humans, but for horses, it’s contagious and can spread from horse-to-horse contact, or indirectly through shared buckets or grooming equipment. Wanamaker said it’s a very common respiratory illness for horses, that can sometimes impact them neurologically. “That’s where there’s more of a concern,” she said. “Treatment would be a little more difficult, prognosis would be poor or at least more difficult to predict what would happen to this horse,” she added. Dr. Mary-Ellen Themens, the registrar for the New Brunswick Veterinary Medical Association, said limiting the virus’ spread is a like COVID-19 precautions. “You avoid sharing the water buckets. You wash your hands, you change your clothes. As far as disinfection, if you’ve got a bunch of manure on the ground, that’s not going to disinfect. So you clean the stall and then you disinfect,” she said. Meanwhile, Taylor said the situation points to the importance of provincial veterinarians. The province is ending provincial veterinary services on March 31, 2027. “Without these vets, we don’t have anything,” she said. For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
