The LSU Veterinarian School houses the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab, the state’s only laboratory that diagnoses animal diseases, where three horses from Texas are being treated for a potentially fatal respiratory and neurological illness.
The horses are being treated for equine herpesvirus at LSU Diagnostics, the campus lab that gives out various tests like rapid polymerase chain reaction tests and buffy coat blood tests. These tests were how the horses’ infections were uncovered.
EHV-1, the strain the horses have, was first found in November at a horse show in Waco, Texas. The three horses were transported across state lines into the teaching hospital where they were then isolated. LSU was the closest diagnostic lab with availability, as Texan resources are overwhelmed with EHV-1 cases…