The U.S. Department of Agriculture has several cooperative research projects under way to study the epidemiology of vesicular stomatitis, including its prevalence in domestic livestock, wildlife and insect populations.
Vesicular stomatitis is a viral disease primarily affecting horses and cattle.
It causes blisters to form in the mouth, on the teats, and on the coronary bands above the hooves. Many aspects of the vesicular stomatitis virus remain unknown, for example, the exact mode of disease transmission and the reservoir species in which the virus cycles when dormant. Once we have more scientific knowledge about the virus, we can work to break this cycle. The first research area focuses on the epidemiology of the disease on the farms where it has appeared, how it spreads within herds and which species are potential hosts and carriers for the virus. The objective of these studies is to develop detailed pictures of affected farms to identify potential risk factors, including plants, insects, rodents, and local climate and geography.