VS Virus Continues
To Infect Livestock

DENVER —(AP)— An outbreak of a highly contagious livestock disease has grown to 37 cases in Colorado and more than four dozen in neighboring New Mexico, with an average of one new case a day in the past nine days.

All the cases of vesicular stomatitis in Colorado have been among horses. Unlike an outbreak in the summer of 1995, though, the state isn't quarantining the animals.

This summer's strain of vesicular stomatitis isn't as contagious as the one that hit Colorado two years ago, said Janet Jackson of the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

Although rarely fatal, the disease causes animals to lose weight quickly because blisters in the mouth and nostrils make it painful to eat or drink.

The only other state with the disease is New Mexico, with 51 confirmed cases — 50 horses and one bull, said Dr. Gary Brickler, head of a federal task force monitoring the outbreak. The year’s first case was confirmed in Arizona in early June, but that one healed and no new cases developed there.

There are now 16 cases in Pueblo; six in the Boulder area; four in Durango; two in Florence; and one each in Avondale, Bayfield, Briggsdale, Erie, Ignacio, Longmont, Pagosa Springs, Wetmore and Williamsburg.

"This year's outbreak is less explosive, and we hope it won't be as large," Jackson said.

During the peak of the 1995 outbreak, there were about 90 infected premises in Colorado. State officials imposed a 10-mile-radius quarantine where infected animals were found and shut down livestock sales and shows.