Objective Data Plead to Suspend Import-Bans for Seroreactors Against Equine Arteritis Virus Except for Breeder Stallions

Abstract A seroepidemiological test survey by micro-serumneutralization test for equine arteritis virus (EAV) was conducted in 4 breeds of horses. The incentive for the present investigation was successful isolation of EAV virus from 3 aborted fetuses, one each from three different breeds during 1989–90 in Austria. Randomly sampled sera of 130 riding horses revealed 12.1% cases positive to EAV. Contrarily, 78.1% of Austrian- borne Lipizzan mares from the stud, in which one of the virologically proved EAV-abortion had occurred, were seroreactors. Moreover, 51.6% of Lipizzan mares imported from 5 European countries, were also seropositive. Results also revealed high seroreactor rates in Austrian state- owned stallions, i.e. 55.6% of the Haflinger, 73.3% of the Noriker, 84.6% of the Warmblood and 93.3% of the Lipizzan stallions were seropositive to EAV. The data revealed that stallions did not acquire EAV infection from mares during their 4 months' covering stay on field stations. As no artificial inseminati...