After the usual and more-or-less expected issues of delayed flights, lost luggage, difficulties clearing customs, and out-of-service ferries, we arrived last night on Ometepe Island in good order, and ready to begin work today. The community we will visit today, La Concha, is new to us,

and was arranged by Muriel Gomez, who has been a local contact and has been providing us with transportation services in his

van since we first began coming to Ometepe 6 years ago.

It is the closest community to Moyogalpa, where we stay for several nights of our campaign here,

about a 20 minute drive on the relatively good roads of this part of the island. Historically, we have seen many cases of Vesicular Stomatitis in Moyogalpa, where we have come to regard the disease as endemic, and seen only sporadically in other communities on the island.

It will be interesting to begin seeing something about the incidence of VS in La Concha. In Esquipulas,another community we visit, about the same distance from Moyogalpa but in the opposite direction, VS is apparently not endemic. Muriel expects about 100 horses to be presented in La Concha, and he’s usually right.

We are a diverse group this year, including veterinarians from the US, Canada, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and are fortunate to have three Nicaraguan students with us as well.

I’ll check in regularly during the course of the next 5 days, (internet connectivity permitting) as we circumnavigate this island, visiting a total of six communities as we go.

David Turoff, DVM