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Trainer Rail died of same respiratory disease as horses
BRISBANE: Horse trainer Vic
Rail died of the same disease
which killed 14 horses, and two
stablehands had also contracted its
symptoms, Queensland Health au-
thorities said yesterday.
Queensland director of Public
Health Dr Gerry Murphy and the
director of Animal Health, Kevin
Dunn, told a joint press confer-
ence, that tests on two Rail em-
ployees had demonstrated anti-
bodies of the virus but neither
were at risk of developing serious
illness.
Mr Dunn said authorities were
still puzzled how the horses con-
tracted the virus, now being called
Acute Equine Respiratory Syn-
drome, but quarantine measures
put in place since the discovery or
the virus had played a key role in
controlling it.
The Queensland Minister for
Primary Industries, Ed Casey, who
chaircd the conference, also an-
nounced a "limited" return to rac-
ing at Eagle Farm on Saturday.
However the return is only for
horses trained within the 5km
quarantine area of Rail's Hendra
stables.
Current restrictions on the
movements of horses in the area
will remain.
Two-year-old barrier trials
scheduled for Eagle Farm tomor-
row have been postponed again
and the Albion Park trot meeting
scheduled on Saturday night trans-
ferred to the Gold Coast.
The Doomben meeting next
Wednesday has already been trans-
ferred to Ipswich.
Rail, 49, was well known for his
training Teats of former champion
racehorse Vo Rogue, who won 26
races and was placed a further 23
times from 83 starts, winning more
than $3.1 million in prize money.
Mr Dunn said tests in the past
few days had ruled out a toxic
cause in the deaths of the horses
in Rail's stable.
"We now know a virus lead to
the deaths," Mr Dunn said.
"At this stage it appears the vi-
rus is limited to the Hendra pre-
mises and it appears it is a virus
that is not spread in any highly
contagious way from horse to
horse.
"We are not dealing with an epi-
demic but at this stage we don't
know the extent of the limit of in-
fection of this virus.
"It may be that is possible to in-
fect horses without causing serious
disease.
"This is one of the important
areas that is currently under inves-
tigation."
Dr Murphy said that the post
mortem on Rail ruled out legion-
naire's disease and indicated he
had an illness "very similar, if not
identical" to that which killed the
horses.
"From tests so far conducted at
the Animal Health Laboratory
there is strong presumptive evi-
dence that the same virus which
killed the horses also killed Mr
Rail."
Dr Murphy said evidence also
showed the virus was not spread
through the air but how it was
spread was still unknown.
"It would appear as though very
close contact is necessary with in-
fected saliva or blood from a sick
horse," he said.
"For that reason and also be-
cause there's been no other cases
of severe human illness in this
present episode leads to a very
firm conclusion that there's no risk
to the general health of the pub-
lic."
Mr Dunn said foul play had al-
so been ruled out in Rail's death
and police had dropped their in-
vestigation.
Health authorities believe the vi-
rus may belong to the same virus
group which causes measles in hu-
mans, distemper in dogs and a
particular virus in cattle.
"We believe it's a single virus
but hitherto has been unrecognised
as disease causing," Mr Dunn said.
"It's too early to say whether
it's an existing virus which may
have changed in some way or mu-
tated."
Health authorities hope to re-
ceive further tests results next week
while a further meeting between
health authorities and racing offi-
cials will be held next Tuesday.
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