2017 ACVIM Forum Research Abstract Program

The results of the current study show that ECoV is detected in a small percentage of horses with enteric disease and is not a common finding in horses with orthopedic conditions. Also, inconsistent agreement between EM and RT-PCR results emphasizes diagnosis of ECoV is confounded by limited sensitivity and specificity data of currently available diagnostic tests. Four horses were experimentally infected with frozen feces containing approximately 10 9 genome equivalents of ECoV/g of feces collected from the intestinal lumen of a horse diagnosed with ECoV at necropsy. Four additional horses were exposed daily to the feces from the experimentally challenged horses. Monitoring included twice daily physical examinations, daily nasal swab, blood, and fecal collection for quantitative molecular detection of ECoV. Blood was collected every other day for hematologic analysis and prior to experimental infection and weekly thereafter for serological analysis.