Additional WNV Cases Discovered

By Bill Johnson Published Sep 6, 2004 10:15 am Updated Jan 31, 2009 04:42 pm

More horses have been discovered with the West Nile Virus.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture reports 41 new cases of West Nile in horses as of last week.

Greg Ferraro is the Director of the School of Veterinary Medicine at UC Davis.

“If you´ve talked to veterinarians in the last couple of months, they´ve really jumped it up. We estimated at the beginning of the year that we had somewhere between 60 to 70 percent vaccinated and now I think we´re closer to 80 percent. But you´ve also got to realize, in a state with 1.2 million horses, 20 percent not vaccinated is still a sizeable number.”

The total number of cases of West Nile in horses is now at 199, and 92 of those horses have died.

Vets are urging all horse owners to get their animals vaccinated as soon as possible.