Fig 1. Body temperatures, clinical signs, nasal shedding and viremia after experimental infection of weanlings with the EHV-1 strain NY03.

The groups (n = 5 per group) were established based on IgE-bio and/or EHV-1 gC antigen treatments of the foals at birth: group 1 received IgE-bio and Sav-gC/IL-4 antigen; group 2 received Sav-gC/IL-4 antigen; control group 3 no treatment at birth. EHV-1 challenge infection occurred at seven months of age (day 0; arrow) and was performed under identical conditions for all three groups. On day 0, measurements and samples were taken before infection. (A) Body temperatures; the dotted horizontal line shows the cut-off value for fever (101.5°F); (B) clinical scores; (C) nasal shedding expressed as viral copy numbers of the EHV-1 gene gB per ml nasal secretion sample and (D) viremia (gB Ct-value) per 5 x 10⁶ PBMC. Nasal shedding and viremia were evaluated by real-time PCR. The dotted horizontal line shows the positive PCR Ct-value cut-off value. All negative PCR values were set to this value. All graphs show means and standard errors per group. Significant differences between groups: a = groups 1 and 3; c = groups 1 and 2.