Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...deadly virus attacks the famed Lipizzaner horses
...leap like ballet stars. General George Patton was so charmed by their pirouettes that he ordered his troops in Austria to rescue the great snow-white horses from advancing Soviet forces at the close of World War II. Today the Lipizzaners face a new enemy: a deadly virus of the herpes family. The disease has not hit the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, the showcase for the horses, but by the end of last week it had killed seven mares and 27 foals at the Piber stud farm, 150 miles south of the city. The outbreak...
...type called herpes simplex, which is passed among humans by sexual contact. The name, however, covers some 50 viral infections that afflict animals. The equine variety is transmitted not by mating but by coughing or sniffling and can be "carried" by a seemingly well animal, just as the virus can reside in some humans with no visible ill effects...
...equine herpes I in Austria began in mid-February when a number of horses started coughing. By March, many of the mares were aborting their foals. Miscarriages are a common effect of herpes, but the next phase of the disease is not. The unusually virulent form of the virus slowly killed the seven mares by paralyzing their nervous systems. Mourns Heinrich Lehrner, head of the Piber stud farm: "Every one of the horses that have died was like a member of a big family...
...knows for sure why the Lipizzaners were hit so hard by a disease that is usually not life-threatening. Dr. Erwin Rothensteiner, a veterinarian with the Austrian government, suggests that the stud-farm horses may have inadequate defenses against the virus because they have been isolated and inbred over the years...