Diagnosis

As with EHV 1.

Fourfold increases in antibody give an assessment of the herd problem.

Control

As with all herpesviruses virus is often introduced by new stock and stress related factors reactivating latent virus. Isolation of new stock is therefore advisable.

Two attenuated live vaccines are available in the U.K., one of them is a temperature sensitive mutant. Both are given intranasally and can, unusually, be given in an abortion outbreak on the grounds that they induce interferon which will limit disease. Neither vaccine protects against reinfection, but they do reduce the severity and duration of clinical disease.

Vaccines with gE deletions are in use in the EU. They allow distinction between vaccinated and wild type infections by the use of an ELISA against gE with regard to future eradication programmes.