Stages
Acute: The acute form is a sudden onset of the disease at full-force. Symptoms include high fever, anemia (due to the breakdown of red blood cells), weakness, swelling of the lower abdomen and legs, weak pulse, and irregular heartbeat. The horse may die suddenly.
Subacute: A slower, less severe progression of the disease. Symptoms include recurrent fever, weight loss, an enlarged spleen (felt during a rectal examination), anemia, and swelling of the lower chest, abdominal wall, penile sheath, scrotum, and legs.
Chronic: Horse tires easily and is unsuitable for work. May have a recurrent fever and anemia, may relapse to the subacute or acute form even several years after the original attack.
There are currently no statistics available on mortality of EIA. No statistics are available of horses actually dying of acute forms. See also
A horse may also not appear to have any symptoms, yet still tests positive for EIA antibodies. This horse can still pass on the disease. According to most veterinarians, horses diagnosed EIA positive are usually not showing any sign of sickness or disease.
EIA may cause abortion in pregnant mares. This may occur at any time during the pregnancy if there is a relapse when the virus enters the blood. Most infected mares will abort, however some give birth to healthy foals. Foals are not necessarily infected.
Studies indicate that there are breeds with a tolerance to EIA.
Recent studies in Brazil on living wild horses have shown that in the Pantanal, about 30% of domesticated and about 5.5% of the wild horses are chronically infected with EIA.
Read more about this topic: Equine Infectious Anemia
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