Blue Tongue & FMD Update - 3rd October 07

Blue Tongue Virus 8 (BTV8)  Wednesday 3 October 2007

There are over 25 confirmed cases in the area around Ipswich. Some are the result of report cases and some the result of surveillance work. DEFRA will be updating the case numbers on the website once each day.

You have received over the course of the year updates on BTV8 spread and policy development in UK and were sent the Strategy.

Policy in England.  Following the first confirmed case an attempt to eradicate the disease was made and the infected animals were slaughtered. The virus was shown to be circulating at the end of last week and policy adjusted to; an attempt to contain the virus in the area of the cases in East Anglia. The hope is that the virus did not penetrate further into England and that if the infection can be kept in that region until the weather turns colder with a resultant drop in midge activity infected animals / midges will not have been distributed across the country resulting in large numbers of cases across the country in the next midge season. i.e. An effort is being made to reduce the effect of the disease on animals in 2008.

There are still some very grey areas around this strain (8) of the virus. It is thought that infected animals are no longer infective to this strain after approx 60 days. The lower the temperature below about 20C  the longer it takes a midge to generate enough virus for it to be capable of infecting an animal and below 15C it may not generate enough or any. The virus is thought to have arrived by wind blow around 6 August.

Vaccine.

There is no vaccine for this serotype though there is a hope that one of two companies may have one ready by the middle of next year. This will be a dead vaccine, but price, efficacy, administration, EU rules etc are still an unknown.

Movement of Animals.

DEFRA review the control policy daily. The EU Commission is expected to introduce a new movement regime very soon (possibly this week). The important thing with BTV is that everyone remembers that it is midge contact and not animal to animal contact that spreads the disease, not easy in the middle of an FMD outbreak.

NBA Policy

NBA policy is to allow animals in the restricted area to move to direct slaughter, with conditions that are not onerous, anywhere in the country. Store / breeding animals should not move out yet. The risk of slaughter animals spreading the virus is small and the businesses in the RZ need to trade before animals go out of spec. If the finishers in the zone do not move animals on they will not be able or willing to buy in new animals that others wish to move off there holdings at this time of year and the whole chain will take a serious hit. There was an opportunity in September for animals to be moved out of the control zone to other parts of GB so it is possible that virus is already circulating in other regions.

FMD

SCoFCAH has made a decision today on the resumption of meat trade. The detail appears complicated and details will be sent when the picture is clear.