ABORTION DUE TO EQUINE HERPESVIRUS IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

We report an outbreak of abortion due to equine herpesvirus (EHV) in 5 mares between 9 and 11 months of gestation, from a herd of 22 Thoroug hbred mares. Equine herpesvirus was isolated from extracts of the live r, spleen and thymus but not from the lungs of a 9-month fetus grown i n Rabbit Kidney (RK13) cells. The virus was identified by electron mic roscopy, where virus particles could be seen in the nucleus of infecte d cells, and by the fluorescent antibody technique with polyclonal ant ibodies against the whole virus. Anamnesis, necropsy, histopathology, bacteriology, and virology data suggest that the abortions reported in this paper were due to equine herpesvirus.