• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2014

Equine herpesvirus myeloencephalopathy, out of symptoms by equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) infection, can cause devastating losses on individual farms. Although myeloencephalopathy syndromes of horses in Korea have been recognized for a couple of years in horse populations, there is little study regarding the occurrence of EHV-1 infections. The present study was performed to detect the viral infection of horses with neurological syndrome using real-time PCR. Fifteen horses (27.3%) out of 55 horses with neurological deficiency were positive for EHV-1 viral antigen. Among these 7 horses, 4 horses were detected genotype of A2254/N752 and 3 horses G2254/D752 strain, respectively.

• Journal of Practical Agriculture & Fisheries Research
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.105-113
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• 2014

Equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) is an economically important pathogen of horses and exerts its major impact by inducing abortion storms and sporadic abortions in pregnant mares, early neonatal death in foals, and respiratory disease in young horses. Although equine herpesvirus type 4 (EHV-4) rarely causes clinical manifestations of disease in organs other than the respiratory track, isolated cases of myeloencephalopathy and sporadic abortions have been reported in EHV-4 infections. Here, we report an abortion storm in Thoroughbred breeding farms in Jeju island, South Korea. It occurred for 16 days from first abortion to last one. There were no clinical signs prior to abortion and stillbirth in broodmares. Two PCR-primers were made on glycoprotein B gene of EHV-1 and EHV-4 to amplify specific common regions of the viruses. We could detect the virus specific genes in aborted samples by PCR, and concluded that the cause of abortion storm was EHV infection. This report describes the first abortion storm case caused by EHV in Thoroughbred breeding farms in South Korea.