If a horse has had Uveitis and
has been treated are
they still contagious?????? Or is it even contagious
from one horse to another.
My vet told me it was not and one of my
boarders is
insists it is???????????????
So now I have turned to the
masses, has anyone out
there had any experience with it---
THANKING
YOU ALL IN ADVANCE------
Marcy
The uveitis itself is not contagious. However, the
condition that set up the uveitis to begin with often is. The most
common cause seems to be leptospirosis, and the horse may be able to pass that
on to other horses when the infection is active. Odds are, though, that
the lepto infection itself is long gone by the time the horse exhibits the
uveitis. What causes the uveitis is an overactive immune response to the
antibodies to the initial cause, such as the lepto. Big particles called
immune complexes form in the eyes, and cause extreme irritation and damage to
the eyes. Once the condition is present, these can flare up repeatedly
over the years, triggered by a future immune response to just about
anything--even something as innocuous as deworming in the face of a moderately
large worm load. (In fact, it is recommended that horses with recurrent
uveitis be maintained on daily dewormers, and/or dewormed extremely frequently
to prevent any worm loads from building up.) So your vet is right that
the condition is not contagious, but your boarder may be thinking about the
fact that an infectious disease triggers the problem in the beginning, and may
not understand that the condition persists long after the causitive infection
has cleared.
Heidi
