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Lock jaw in horses- it’s mad not to vaccinate When I was seeing practice in Maidstone during my university years I was on call with one of the local vets and got called out to a young shire horse that seemed to have become very stiff-legged. We arrived at the yard and I listened as the vet took a history from the owner. The inevitable question arose; was the horse vaccinated. The commonly heard answer of ‘no’ was duly given. The young horse was indeed very stiff in all four legs and, it soon became apparent, in most of the muscles of its body. The vet did a test which involved lifting the head of the horse up to see what the eye movements did. The response gave the almost certain diagnosis of lockjaw, or tetanus as it is rightly called. Most animals can be affected by the bacteria that cause this disease but horses are particularly sensitive to it. The disease causes gradual but total paralysis of the muscles of the body including the jaw, hence the term lockjaw. The animal becomes unable to eat or drink and eventually the muscles of respiration are paralysed and the animal inevitably dies. As you can imagine, it is not a speedy or pleasant way to go. There is an antitoxin available and penicillin-type antibiotics can be used to treat the disease but often these measures are too little too late because the disease takes a hold so rapidly. We did daily visits to the yard to administer huge doses of antitoxin and antibiotics. However, after about 3 days it became obvious we were losing the battle and the horse had to be euthanased. This really stuck with me because it was so sad to lose such a young animal but also it is a totally preventable disease by vaccination. The false economy of avoiding the cost of the vaccination ended up not only with large vet bills for treatment but the loss of the horse. Some people these days are also very concerned about over-vaccination of animals and the possibility of vaccine reactions and immune diseases following them. To all those who are concerned I would say this; once you have watched an animal succumb to any of these preventable diseases you don’t rush to take that risk. Vaccines have been saving lives for years and I wouldn’t like to see that stop.
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